A two-year-old California boy and his four-year-old sister have tragically passed away after they were swept away in a fast-flowing river after they were playing with their mother. According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, the mother and her children were playing near Mill Creek while they spent the afternoon playing outside in the San Bernardino Mountains at a picnic area on Tuesday afternoon. According to the statement from the sheriff's department, the mother was tending to her son around 3 p.m. when her daughter was swept downstream. While the mother was searching for her daughter, she noticed that her son was also missing. The boy was also presumed to have fallen into the rapid water and taken downstream. “The mother searched for her but could not locate her,” police said. “When she returned, her son was missing and assumed to be down river as well. After frantically searching, she hiked up to the picnic area and contacted another family to help search for the children but were unsuccessful in locating them.”

When fire and law enforcement officials arrived on the scene, they immediately took action in trying to locate the missing children. Authorities found the four-year-old girl around 4:40 p.m. near the river's edge. Less than half an hour later, authorities found the two-year-old boy near the river's edge around 5 p.m. According to NBC News, the children's bodies were found one and a half miles from the picnic area. The children were rushed to the local hospital where they received extensive life-saving measures, but were sadly pronounced dead shortly after.

Speaking about the dangers of rapid waters in the area, San Bernardino County Fire public information officer, Eric Sherwin, told NBC News, “We’re starting to enter into our warmer days, which attracts people out to our creeks, rivers and waterfalls. But this also coincides with the Spring melt when our water flow is typically at one of the higher rates that we see.”