Community Corner

RB High Grad Dies in Hawaii Waterfall

Kris Gungon, who was a U.S. Border Patrol agent based at the El Centro station, died on Sunday in Hawaii.

Kris Gungon, a 31-year-old U.S. Border Patrol agent and Rancho Bernardo High School graduate, died over the weekend while on vacation with his family in Hawaii.

Gungon was in a pool at Waimea Falls in the northern part of Oahu with his wife Denise and their infant daughter, according to U-T San Diego. Officials initially said Gungon had gone into the pool Sunday afternoon to save a woman in distress, but that was later determined not to be the case.

"It's been made clear now through the further investigation of police ... that he apparently was not attempting to rescue anybody but did get into trouble while swimming and went below the surface and drowned," Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Terry Seelig told Patch on Wednesday.

"It's a lesson for us to be more cautious in releasing preliminary information," Seelig said.

A spokeswoman for the Honolulu Medical Examiner's office said Gungon's cause of death has been deferred pending further investigation that could take six to eight weeks.

Seelig said there were two lifeguards on duty at the waterfall, which is a popular attraction. In the immediate chaos, fire officials were told by people there that Gungon had gone into the water to save a woman who was in distress, but the woman denied that, he said. The woman had been in some kind of distress but not to the point of needing someone to dive in and save her, he said.

"It's still a little bit unclear to me as to what really happened," he said. "It was definitely a tragedy."

Gungon's body was found about 25 below the surface around 5:20 p.m. by fire rescue and lifeguards, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser.


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