Lake claims Ojai resident
By Lenny Roberts

Sheriff's Detective Joe Evans described longtime Ventura County law enforcement officer Alex Gerard Marquez, 40, as a great police officer and a great guy.

Marquez was pronounced dead Tuesday morning after he apparently fell out of his fishing boat at Lake Casitas. Following an autopsy Wednesday the County Medical Examiner's office ruled the death as an accidental asphyxiation by drowning.

According to Sheriff's Deputy Mike Berg of the Aviation/Search and Rescue Unit, a helicopter crew was dispatched to the lake after rangers said that they had located an unoccupied boat with a fishing pole and related gear adrift.

Once on scene, the flight crew radioed Casitas rangers for the exact location of the unattended vessel. That information was relayed to ground-based sheriff's deputies, firefighters and paramedics, who then staged at the main marina parking lot.

As nearby boaters directed the helicopter to a possible victim in an adjacent cove, the flight crew spotted what appeared to be a motionless body face-down in the water.

Rescue swimmer Scott Norris, who is a certified emergency medical technician, quickly swam to the victim after being deployed from approximately 5 feet above the water line, and was unsuccessful in trying to verify a pulse, according to Berg.

Marquez was then brought the short distance to shore, where he was loaded into the helicopter and airlifted to the Lake Casitas marina, where Life Line paramedics confirmed that he was deceased.
Evans said that he worked with Marquez, an Ojai resident, off and on for the last 10 years before Marquez retired from the Ventura Police Department.

"I talked to him two weeks ago and he told me he was going fishing. He was pretty excited about it. It's a pretty sad day," Evans said.
© 2003 The Ojai Valley News

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