A teacher and a 10-year-old pupil have died after being found in the water during a school outing at the Coralville Reservoir in Iowa.
Hannah Jorgensen, 24, and Ahmed Osman, 10, were members of the Borlaug Elementary School community, the Iowa City Community School District said.
Emergency services were called to Lake MacBride State Park, near the reservoir’s spillway, at about 12.10pm on Tuesday, 22 September. Responders recovered Ms Jorgensen from the water around 33 minutes later and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
A search for Ahmed continued through the afternoon and evening before being suspended overnight. His body was recovered from the reservoir at about 1.24pm on Wednesday, 23 September.
The outing was part of the fifth-grade School of the Wild programme at the Macbride Nature Recreation Area, an outdoor education initiative run through the University of Iowa.
The sheriff’s office said the victims were identified as Ms Jorgensen, of Tiffin, and Ahmed, of Iowa City. It has not released further details about how they entered the water.
The rescue operation involved the Johnson County Metro Dive Team, local fire and police departments, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Iowa State Patrol, the US Army Corps of Engineers and medical teams from the University of Iowa, among others.
The school district said it was providing support to pupils and staff following what it described as a devastating loss.
“Our hearts are shattered by the loss of two beloved members of our Borlaug Elementary family,” it said in a statement. “There are simply no words that can adequately express the depth of this loss.”
The district said Ms Jorgensen and Ahmed were deeply loved by their families and that their deaths would be felt throughout the school community.
The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office said the incident remained under investigation and that no further information was available.
