A MASSIVE search for a teenager feared drowned in the river Severn ended in tragedy last night when a body was pulled from the water.

The boy, now named as 17-year-old vicar's son Tony Ballard, had been swimming with friends when he got into difficulty at about 3.30pm yesterday.

Police received numerous 999 calls from people on the Worcester river bank who had heard the boy’s cries for help.

Emergency services launched a huge search operation, but it was called off at about 6.10pm when a body was recovered by a diver near the spot where the boy had last been seen.

Eyewitnesses had reported seeing four male youths swimming in the river near Pitchcroft.

The boy was last seen in the water beneath a willow tree on the opposite Hylton Road side of the river.

Alan Denton, from Dines Green, was with a friend on the Hylton Road side of the river when they saw the boys swimming.

Mr Denton said: “All four jumped in and started to swim across. Three of them made it to the other side and used the branches from the trees to get out of the water.

“One of them didn’t make it. He was choking and shouting so the other boys tried to help by telling him to get onto his back and try to grab hold of the tree.

“He couldn’t reach the branches then he just went under.

“It is very difficult to get out of the water on this side because there is no bank.”

Paul Duxbury went down to the water’s edge to try and help get the boy out of the water.

Mr Duxbury said: “He was really struggling and then all of a sudden he just went straight down. I went to the water to try and grab him from where I thought he would come up but he didn’t come up, he was gone.”

Another eyewitness, who was one of the first to call the emergency services, had been eating a sandwich on the Pitchcroft side of the riverbank.

"The one kid said he couldn't see his mate anymore,” he said. “They said they could see him one minute and the next he was gone and he had gone underwater. The one who was missing said he was having trouble swimming, the other told him to tread water but he was struggling. They pulled him to the side to a overhanging bush. The next thing was I could just see the three of them.”

During the search operation firefighters and the Severn Area Rescue Association (SARA) combed the riverbank using their rescue boats and thermal imagining cameras.

The Midlands Air Ambulance and ambulance waited at the scene.

Meanwhile police and community support officers searched by foot and bike along the towpath.

At one stage a poilce officer took away a pile of clothes found on the bank.

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