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A body was found in a California river on Monday, 18 days after a local teen was filmed being swept away by its icy currents.
Raymond Cabalfin Jr, 19, was seen leaping into the American River with a female friend after they and their pals hiked the Lake Clementine Trail near Auburn, 30 miles outside Sacramento.
She was able to climb out, but Cabalfin was seen shouting for help as he was quickly pulled away by the river, the Sacramento Bee reported.
The body, which has not yet been confirmed to be Cabalfin, was spotted in the water near the Robie Point hiking area at around 3pm on Monday.
It had been seen by a hiker around three miles downstream of where Cabalfin disappeared, near the Robie Point hiking area.
A California Highway Patrol helicopter confirmed that it was a corpse, and authorities then retrieved it from the water.
'The body that was recovered today was consistent with a body that had been submerged in the water for some time,' Scott Liske, the supervising ranger for the Auburn State Recreation Area, said.
'It was obvious that this body did not enter the water in the last 24 hours.'
Cabalfin's family has been notified, but the body is too badly decomposed to be identified by them.
Instead, identification must be made by the coroner's office. There was no obvious trauma to the body, authorities said.
Neither Cabalfin nor his friend were wearing life jackets or other flotation devices when they leaped into the water.
But even if they had, the coldness of the water, coupled with the large volume and fast currents, would have posed a serious danger.
'With multiple years of drought, a lot of visitors to the river forgot what it's like with real runoff, Liske said. 'When you jump into the cold water, it's a shock to the system.
'This is all of the rivers this year from Northern California to Central California. They are all charged with fast cold water. We are urging everyone to stay alive by staying out.'
He added: 'But if you want to go into the water, wear a life jacket,'
Cabalfin's family had opened a GoFundMe page in order to pay for private searches; as of Tuesday it had raised $5,560.
Cabalfin exercised at a local gym and was in 'really good shape,' Evan Alexander, the boyfriend of Cabalfin's older sister, told the Sacramento Bee.
'He grew up in a traditional Asian family and was very sheltered,' Alexander added, saying he hoped to be a nurse or doctor one day.
He also said that officials had bungled the investigation.
'Parents were not notified by any agencies about the incident,' he said. 'They only heard about it from his friend who was there when he was swept away.'