Teen runs from court, jumps into freezing river

Local officials had an anxious 17 minutes Tuesday afternoon after a teenager ran off from Whitley District Court and jumped into the Cumberland River in Williamsburg.
About a dozen law enforcement officers surrounded the banks of the river trying to talk the unnamed juvenile out of the water.
The Williamsburg Rescue Squad was making preparations to put a boat into the river in case the teenager succumbed to hypothermia and started to drown, but he walked out of the water near the Merry Jeffries Community Center before that occurred.
Williamsburg Police Sgt. Wayne Bird said his department was notified about 1:15 p.m. that a 16 or 17-year-old male had run off from juvenile court.
“We came down this way and started looking for him. We had a volunteer fireman over on US25W that spotted him along the river probably in water up to his knees,” Bird said.
“He was trying to hide from us. Instead of coming to us, he just went further out in the river. When we got down there he was in water up to his neck. He was probably in there for seven to 10 minutes after we got there.
“I don’t know how long he had been in there before we got down there. Hypothermia was definitely starting to set in on him.”
Bird said he thinks the juvenile was a few short minutes away from hypothermia setting in, and possibly losing consciousness.
“If he hadn’t of got out when he did, we would have had to have gone in to get him,” Bird noted.
Police were eventually able to talk the teenager out of the river, and onto the bank about 1:32 p.m.
Police walked the juvenile up the embankment and to a warm car where they had him take off his wet clothing, and wrap a blanket around himself.
Whitley County EMS examined the teenager at the scene, and he was transported to the Williamsburg Police Department.
Bird said that he’s not sure what the teenager was in court for, but that based on conversations with him, it was probably for school truancy matters.
Bird speculated that the juvenile was probably afraid the judge would send him to a juvenile detention facility, and that he probably just got scared and ran off from the court bailiff.
“He told us he was worried about his mom,” added Williamsburg Police Officer Jason Caddell.
Officers from the Williamsburg Police Department, Whitley County Sheriff’s Department, Kentucky State Police, a constable and other emergency service personnel assisted at the scene.