Idaho sonar expert helps recover body of man who drowned in Lucky Peak outside Boise

With help from a local sonar expert, the Ada County Sheriff’s Office dive team has recovered the body of a 35-year-old man who jumped into Lucky Peak Lake on Sunday afternoon and did not resurface.

The Ada County Coroner’s Office will provide official identification of the man. A GoFundMe was set up for Rodolfo Gomez Thomas on Monday, however, and it described his death as “a tragedy for a family in which a father lost his life when he drowned trying to rescue his three daughters.”

A previous Idaho Statesman story reported Gomez Thomas jumped into the lake without a life jacket near Turner Gulch when several tubes carrying children behind the boat flipped. All of the children were wearing life jackets, authorities said, and were OK.

The sheriff’s office confirmed the recovery of the body on Tuesday afternoon in a tweet, almost 48 hours after his disappearance.

“Local sonar expert Gene Ralston located the man’s body about 170 feet down, very near to where he fell in, near Turner Gulch, just before noon,” Patrick Orr, Ada County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, said Tuesday.

Orr said Ralston – a 78-year-old Kuna resident who specializes in using sonar to detect bodies – helped a dive team retrieve the body after locating it.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the GoFundMe for Gomez Thomas had raised $12,165 of a $25,000 goal, with proceeds going toward funeral and other expenses.

Lucky Peak Lake, part of Lucky Peak State Park, saw numerous drownings over the summer of 2022. Last weekend’s incident was the first reported drowning at the lake in 2023.