Lafayette man dies after falling off inner tube in river

MONTICELLO, Ind. (WLFI) — A Lafayette man is dead after tubing down the Tippecanoe River near Diamond Point on Sunday afternoon, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources said Monday.

According to the department’s conservation officers, White County Communications about 3:50 p.m. Sunday received a 911 report of a man who was pulled from the Tippecanoe River in White County. 

Jerry F Boling II, 51, of Lafayette, was floating down the river in an inner tube with two friends. At some point, he fell into the water from his tube and began to struggle. Friends grabbed him and got him back to his tube. Sometime later, Boling again fell in the water and started to struggle. A boater pulled him into a boat and took him to the bank to emergency responders waiting at a residence along Diamond Point.

Conservation officers and a bystander performed CPR and applied an automated external defibrillator before emergency medical services arrived. Boling was taken to IU Health White Memorial Hospital where he died.

The White County Coroner’s Office will determine the cause of death.

According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, no one in Boling’s group possessed a life jacket.