A 16-year-old Brooklyn boy drowned Monday while swimming at a park in the Hudson Valley on a school field trip.
The state parks department says the teen's body was found just before 4 p.m. Monday after he'd been reported missing at Hessian Lake in Bear Mountain State Park.
Officials say the teen, identified as Jean Fritz Pierre, was on a hiking day trip from International High School in Brooklyn.
Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said Pierre and another student wandered away from the group, which he said had the required number of teachers and chaperones; five adults were on the trip with 48 students.
"There was a proper staff-student ratio. They were on a hiking trip," Walcott said.
Tamarar Duclosel, a friend of the boy, said she last saw Pierre as he boarded the bus for the trip Monday.
"Everybody's saying he knows how to swim. They just don't know how he could have drowned in the water," she said.
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Duclosel described Pierre, known as "JP" to his friends, as outgoing and friendly.
Walcott said grief counselors would be at the school through the week.
A parks department spokesman says there are no lifeguards and swimming isn't allowed at Hessian Lake, which is near the Orange County hamlet of Fort Montgomery, 46 miles north of New York City.
The drowning is under investigation.
-- Checkey Beckford contributed to this report.
