Kansas Man Drowns In Oregon’s Famously Frigid ‘Blue Pool’

A Kansas man drowned in a frigid spring in a volcanic crater in Oregon known as “Blue Pool,” authorities said.

The Linn County Sheriff’s Office said that at 8:47 p.m. on June 26, a 911 caller reported a man had jumped into Tamolitch Falls on the McKenzie River National Recreation Trail in Willamette National Forest, commonly known as Blue Pool, and could not get out.

Deputies responded along with personnel from the neighboring Lane County Sheriff’s Office, and Upper McKenzie Rural Fire. The sheriff’s office said first responders have answered calls at Blue Pool “many times before.”

Witnesses reported that 21-year-old Kenny Truong of Kansas was visiting with friends when he jumped in. But as he tried swimming to shore he struggled before submerging and failing to reappear. “Despite the best efforts” of his friends and first responders, he did not survive.

Blue Pool “has taken lives before and will take lives again if visitors do not understand what they are facing,” the sheriff’s office said.

The pool is surrounded by cliffs rising between 10 and 60 feet. The water averages just 37 degrees, “cold enough to cause immediate physical shock upon entry,” the sheriff’s office said. There is also limited to no cell phone reception in the area, and due to the remote location, it can take “several hours from the moment of injury to reach a hospital.”

According to the U.S. Forest Service, a lava flow 1,600 years ago buried a 3-mile stretch of the McKenzie River, and it resurfaces at Blue Pool, at the base of the dry Tamolitch Falls. The water seeps up through porous lava “creating a pristine turquoise blue colored pool.”

“We ask everyone planning to visit Tamolitch Falls to go with that knowledge,” the sheriff’s office said. “Understand the risks before you enter the water. Look out for the people you came with.”