Cody Jay Pope dies after rescuing his two children in Mississippi River

A Minnesota man who disappeared Friday while rescuing his two young children from the rain-swollen Mississippi River was found dead by authorities Sunday, ending an extensive two-day search that involved a dozen agencies, according to the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota.

Cody Jay Pope, 41, had taken his children out on the river in a canoe Friday at Rivers Edge Commons in Elk River, a small city northwest of Minneapolis, according to the sheriff’s office and a family member.

The children “began to struggle” while swimming around a sandbar, the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. Pope grabbed one child and “was able to get her to the sandbar.” He went back in the water for the other child, whom he pushed to shore.

Then he disappeared under the swirling green water. The sheriff’s office said that firefighters and police officers retrieved the children from the sandbar and that they told authorities their father had been swept away.

Pope was a carpenter who had lived in the Elk River area since he was a child, according to his brother, Jesse Pope.

He said in an interview Monday that his brother had taken his stepdaughter, 10, and his son, 6, out in the canoe and that the three had stopped on the sandbar for a dip.

He said he believed that the two children had been wearing life jackets at the time of the episode, though he didn’t believe his brother was. Pope said that his brother — his only sibling — was a “competent swimmer” but that he was outmatched by the river. “The river is so strong right now that if you get pulled in, the current will just sweep you down there.”

He added: “It’s a dangerous bit of business.”

The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to inquiries for additional information Monday.

“We grew up close and saw each other regularly,” Pope said of his younger brother. They used to go out on Minnesota’s lakes and rivers in a Coleman canoe, he said — the same canoe, he believed, that the family had taken onto the river Friday.

“I think that’s the same one that we’ve had the whole time,” he said.

The canoe had belonged to their grandfather, a World War II veteran.

His younger brother had carried on the family tradition, he said. “He liked going out onto the river, throwing out a line, taking the kids out there,” Pope said.

Cody Pope’s partner, Cheryl Holzknecht, the mother of both children, said on Facebook, “I will spend the rest of my life missing Cody.” She remembered her husband as “an amazing daddy and a true hero in his last moments.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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