4 victims of Tulalip crash identified (slide show)

TULALIP – The Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office has identified the four people who died in a crash on the Tulalip Reservation Aug. 18.

TULALIP – The Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office has identified the four people who died in a crash on the Tulalip Reservation Aug. 18.

The cause of death for each of the four was accidental drowning, the examiner said.

They are:

•16-year-old Lynnishia M. Larson of Marysville.

•21-year-old Tyson D. Walker of Tulalip.

•15-year-old Ariela Vendiola of Marysville.

•22-year-old Dylan D. Monger of Tulalip.

The four were in a truck that left the roadway and landed upside down in a pond near the 7500 block of Totem Beach Road.

A call came in to 9-1-1 around 3:30 a.m. reporting that a truck had gone off the roadway, over a foot-tall concrete embankment, through a cyclone fence and into a fisheries rearing pond, Snohomish County sheriff’s spokeswoman Shari Ireton said.

Holly Reed, assistant manager at the Tulalip Hatchery, said she was downstream from the wreck monitoring chinook salmon when she saw the truck pulled out upside down Monday morning. By noon she was using a monitor to check the water quality at the crash site.

She said ironically that usually this time of the year there is no water in that pond, but now it’s about 10 feet deep. But in February 1 million coho will be there.

Reed said work was done recently on that bridge, and fisheries was concerned that the railing wasn’t high enough. They were concerned kids would climb over the railing and climb on the net that keeps birds away from the fish.

“They came around the corner, lost control and ended upside down in the water,” Reed said of the accident victims, adding family members had been there that morning.

Tulalip Tribes Chairman Mel Sheldon told the tribal-owned newspaper, “Any death is heartbreaking, when we lose loved ones so young it is even more shocking and painful. He asked people on the reservation “to hold your loved ones close and to give comfort to each other during this trying time.”

The two girls were going to be juniors at Marysville-Pilchuck High School this fall. That’s the same school where a student killed four students and himself last year.

Collision Investigation detectives will research the cause of the incident.