People gather at popular swimming area at Farewell Bend Park just below Bill Healy Bridge in July 2020.

Nothing on the surface of the Deschutes River made Rodolfo Calvario think it was anything but a benign stretch of water, so he waded in, planning to swim the 40 or so feet to the other side.

But there’s more going on under the surface of the Deschutes River as it passes beneath the Bill Healy Bridge in Bend.

Frigid water. Hundred-year-old sunken logs and other hazards. Swift-moving underwater currents.

Calvario, a Bend father of three, went under the water shortly after he began his swim across the river on Sunday. He was pulled from the river after 10 minutes at the bottom. He remains a patient at St. Charles Bend, though his family said he suffered irreversible brain damage and is being kept alive by machines.

“They said it’s very unlikely that he will ever be who he was or wake up,” said family friend Yaneli Ortiz-Napoles, who was with Calvario at the time of his near-drowning.

Drownings and river rescues have been more or less a constant in Bend for more than 100 years. Perhaps the most prominent incident was the 1928 death of U.S. presidential candidate Frank T. Johns, who was delivering a stump speech at Drake Park when he attempted to save a drowning boy. The problem was bad enough the Bend City Council passed an ordinance banning swimming in the Deschutes, which it finally rescinded in 2000.

Visitors to Central Oregon see the whitewater rapids outside of town and instinctively understand those are dangerous, according to Lt. Bryan Husband, search and rescue coordinator for the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office.

“They can have this false sense of security when they get into town where there’s not necessarily rapids but the water is moving and generally speaking, it’s moving faster than what people think,” he said. “People absolutely get complacent around the river at times.”

The biggest thing that catches people off guard is the temperature, Husband said. Though the temperature outside might be in the 90s, the river, fed by snowmelt and icy springs, is much colder, even during the height of summer. A person can jump into the water and, with the shock of the cold, take in a mouthful of water.

The river’s also deeper in town than many assume. Though obviously shallower at the banks, the Deschutes River averages around 8 feet in depth through town, with a few areas reaching 12 to 14 feet.

The river’s surface speed also differs from the speed below the surface. In general, the water surface speed in Bend is around 2-3 mph, while the speed of deeper currents averages 3-7 mph, which can feel significant to a swimmer, Husband said.

Another variable to consider are the myriad obstacles resting on the bottom of the river — old tires, railroad ties, all kinds of garbage. The section of the Deschutes between the Colorado Avenue Bridge and the Bill Healy Bridge was for years a log pond shared by two of the world’s largest pine lumber mills, Shevlin-Hixon and Brooks-Scanlon, and lumber from the this era can still be found at the river bottom.

Another danger is often overlooked. Husband said it’s extremely rare that a person drowns in the Deschutes while wearing a life jacket, also called a personal flotation device or PFD.

“The moral of the story is people need to wear PFDs,” he said.

Calvario was not an experienced swimmer and was not wearing a life jacket at the time he went under, according to incident narratives provided by Bend Police Department. The reports depict a frantic scene at the beach near the Bill Healy Bridge, one of the most popular spots for families to get in the water, as river users attempted to locate Calvario before first responders arrived.

Calvario, 37, has been in a coma since the incident. He lives in Bend while most of his extended family lives in Mexico. His supporters are raising money on GoFundMe.

Calvario’s girlfriend is pregnant with his fourth child, according to family friend Ortiz-Napoles.

“She wants all the prayers she can get for him,” Ortiz-Napoles said.