Family raising money to send 17-year-old's body home after drowning

WORCESTER, Mass. — A local family is heartbroken after a teen drowned Sunday, just two weeks after his 17th birthday.

“It leaves us with such sorrow that it happened to someone who was such a good person, such a good kid,” said Yanitza Rivera, the teenager’s stepsister.

Police say Ishe Concepcion Lanoy disappeared in the deep water at Quinsigamond Lake Park and never came up.

Rivera told Boston 25 News that Ishe had just come to the United States from the Dominican Republic this winter to fulfill his dreams.

“Very excited about that, very excited about learning English and he was even going to after school programs on his own time to learn English,” Rivera said.

An accomplished student, but not an accomplished swimmer, she says.

“He was kind of afraid of the deep water, he stood out of it, so that's why we don't understand how that could have happened,” said Rivera.

Neither does Lanoy's mother, who remains in the Dominican Republic, crippled with grief.

“She just asked what happened, what happened to my son, who was watching him, how did this happen?” Rivera said.

Worse still, Rivera says the family doesn't have the money to send Ishe's body back to his home country and his mother.

Friends have started a GoFundMe page in hopes of helping Ishe return home for a final goodbye.

“This is something that's not debatable, we have to give her back her son,” said Rivera.

Cox Media Group