A swim in the Cowichan River near Duncan on a hot summer afternoon turned into an overnight ordeal for a 13-year old boy.
The Cowichan Search and Rescue team was called out late Monday night to rescue the teen after he wandered upstream from Paradise Pools after swimming there with friends.
Search Manager Tina Phillips say the RCMP drone was deployed but the youth was located when he responded to search team members calling out about 800 metres upstream.
She says voice contact was made with him just after 3 am, and members of the search team then needed to use ropes to descend more than 30 metres down an embankment to reach him.
Phillips says the teen was dressed in a swimsuit and was cold and bruised when they brought him up the embankment at around 5:30 am Tuesday morning.
She says one member of the team fashioned a pair of makeshift shoes from a pair of gloves to protect his feet during the ascent.
The teen was given a medical check-up and released to his waiting father to go home.
Correction: A previous version of this story reported the boy was located by an RCMP drone when in fact the drone had not flown far enough upstream to reach his location.
