Bay Area man 4th person to die on Lake Shasta so far this summer

A 49-year-old man drowned at Lake Shasta on Saturday, July 4, while he was trying to help a group of youths who were in the water. Authorities identified the deceased man, in a statement, as Oakland resident Antonio Fernandez.

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Witnesses said Fernandez was part of a group of friends and family swimming across a cove, attempting to help a group of children with a personal watercraft, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office said in the statement. Fernandez slipped under the water and did not resurface.

Deputies from the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office and the Sheriff’s Boating Safety Unit responded to the drowning just before 1 p.m. on Saturday, arriving at the shore of Old Man Campground, located along a finger of the northwest corner of the reservoir, near Gooseneck Cove and Beehive campgrounds. Personnel from the California Highway Patrol Northern Division Air Operations, the U.S. Forest Service and the sheriff’s dive team also arrived. Divers recovered the deceased’s body from the lake, the sheriff’s office said. The reasons why Fernandez went under the water are unknown. 

Fernandez is the fourth fatality at Lake Shasta since the beginning of June. Public information officer Tim Mapes said that’s a higher-than-normal number of fatalities for this time of the summer. 

“It does seem like it’s a higher number. Obviously, as the sheriff’s office and serving the public, we’d like to see no fatalities or injuries from anybody that’s out there recreating,” Mapes said in a phone call with SFGATE on Wednesday. 

On June 22, Alvin Eatinger, an 87-year-old man from Ashland, Oregon, was swimming near a houseboat on Lake Shasta when he became unresponsive and went underwater, according to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office. Bystanders pulled him from the water, and he received medical aid but later died at the hospital. 

A boating accident on June 18 resulted in another person’s death. The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office responded to a single-vessel crash at 5:21 p.m. at Town Creek Cove, on the Sulanharas Creek Arm of Shasta Lake. The boat had hit the shoreline, ejecting the three people onboard: a man, a woman and a child.

The man and the child were transported to the local hospital, where the man was pronounced deceased. Authorities identified him as Vingenzo Anthony Colletti, 47, from Palo Cedro, a rural community in Shasta County. 

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The fourth victim is Maxziel Castro, 22, who was reported missing on June 3. According to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, Castro was believed to be kayaking on Shasta Lake but did not return home. A search was conducted, and while authorities recovered a partially submerged kayak and a paddle, among other items, they didn’t find Castro.

Nearly three weeks later, a boater reported they had found a deceased individual near the area where Castro was thought to have been. The sheriff’s office could not positively identify the body, and the coroner’s office is still working on a DNA analysis. “We just want to get positive identification before we would ever confirm definitively,” Mapes said.

All of the recent fatalities are still under investigation, Mapes said. 

Leading up to the Fourth of July holiday, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement advising the public to “take every precaution” on the water and wear personal flotation devices. 

“Lake Shasta is one of the more popular lakes in California,” Mapes said, encouraging the public to make sure equipment is working properly and that everyone wears a personal flotation device, or PFD, on the water, even strong swimmers. A PFD gives people a better chance at survival if the worst happens on the water. 

“We are still early in the boating season,” Mapes said. “And with a lake that is full, people are going to be out there recreating. And the summer temperatures are right in the middle of where they’re going to be and where people want to be out in the water.”