WEST CHESTER TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WXIX) - The man who was pulled from a pond at Voice of America MetroPark Wednesday has been identified by the coroner’s office.
Sun Yue, 36, of Mason, is the man who drowned in the pond, according to the Butler County Coroner’s Office. His death was an accident, the coroner noted.
“It is just so out of the blue. I mean, you just don’t think about things like that happening...and it’s just an everyday task,” said neighbor Gail Chamberlain.
Neighbors said Yue’s dogs were the center of his life.
“I mean, he got up that morning, took his dogs for a walk, just like he did numerous times every day...I mean, nobody, nobody ever imagines not coming home,” she said.
Chamberlain said Yue will be remembered as a bright light in the neighborhood. She said her neighborhood is tight-knit and everyone knew Yue.
“Kind of kept to himself, but definitely always out walking the dogs and taking good care of them, working on the garage, you know, working on the house, so nice to the kids, like on Halloween, you know, very personable. It’s definitely going to be a loss. It came to us as a surprise,” Chamberlain said.
A water search was issued a little before 9 a.m. following multiple reports from park maintenance that someone may be in the pond, West Chester Township spokeswoman Brianna Wooten.
Crews reported finding a cellphone, a dog leash and keys sitting by the edge of the water, prompting them to believe someone had entered the pond, West Chester Fire Chief Rick Prinz explained.
They also found shoe prints leading to the water, he added.
Public safety teams began searching the water around 8:50 a.m.
“When we got here, we immediately put people in the water, search teams in the water, and we did recover a dog pretty quickly,” Prinz said.
Just before 12 p.m., officials called the Butler County Coroner to the scene once they found a man, now identified as Yue, in addition to a second dog.
The Southwest Regional Task Force One Dive Team recovered both bodies.
The park’s pond is still covered in ice, making recovery efforts more difficult, Prinz said.
“There was pretty thick ice. We had to cut the ice with an ax and a sledgehammer to get to some access points,” he explained.
Prinz says they were searching the pond for at least an hour before they found the man. He does not know how long he was in the water.
As of now, it is unknown why the man and his dogs ended up in the pond, but Prinz assumes it may have been an accident.
The chief says the dogs could have been running onto the frozen pond when ice broke through, and the owner may have jumped in to save them.
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