Photo: Courtesy Jose Sedano
Officials found the body of a 16-year-old boy in Lake Michigan in Waukegan, Illinois, on Sunday, just one day after friends and family posted a desperate plea on social media to find the teen.
The Waukegan Fire Department and police had been searching for Angel Sedano, of Gurnee, around the Waukegan Municipal Beach since Saturday and enlisted the help of a dive team on Sunday, theLake County News-Sunreports. Divers found the boy’s body in the harbor just before 11 a.m.
“When they said it was my son, it was the worst thing ever. My heart broke into millions of pieces,” Angel’s father, Jose Sedano, tells PEOPLE. “Not that I was ready for that, but I had a feeling my son wasn’t alive anymore. Because he wouldn’t run away, he wouldn’t walk away from us, so that was the only [conclusion].”
Courtesy Jose Sedano
When she returned, Angel was gone, Sedano says.
“The kids started looking for my son everywhere … for about an hour,” he says. “When they couldn’t find him, they came to the adults, they came to me and said, ‘Your son is missing. We can’t find him.’ ”
“I was thinking, ‘I lost my son already.’ He had to have fallen into 30-degree water. It was freezing water, it was cold water,” the 36-year-old father of three says.
“I don’t know if it was me being negative or realistic, but there was no other explanation. My son would not just walk away without telling me. The officer said, ‘Maybe he left with a girlfriend or a friend,’ but no. My son would never leave without telling us.”
Officials said in a statement to PEOPLE that Angel died from drowning and there is no foul play suspected. His body was found in about 15 feet of water, according to theChicago Daily Herald.
“Our deepest condolences go out to the Sedano and Carranza families,” Lake County Coroner Dr. Howard Cooper said in the statement. “This is certainly a terrible tragedy.”
On Monday, dance team officials remembered Angel ina Facebook post, writing in spanish, “Rest in peace angel sedano
🙏🏽 we love you so much. We’ll never forget you. You’re already with the angels.”
Sedano says his two daughters were devastated when they received news of their brother’s death.
“It was horrible. They were crying their eyes out,” Sedano says. “But they’re holding up really strong, which is amazing. He would do anything for his sisters. He was humble, so nice and so loving.”
Officials with the dance team haveset up a GoFundMe pagefor the boy’s family.
source: people.com
