Girl’s drowning raises safety concerns over popular swimming spot [Video]

A South Bay parent is mourning the loss of her child, and sounding an alarm about the dangers of a popular swimming spot.

Mari Gonzalez sits in her East San Jose apartment and clutches her daughter’s favorite teddy bear, oversized and dressed in a pink vest, all while looking at multiple pictures of the girl on the living room wall. Days from now, she’ll bury her only child, after an accidental death on Memorial Day.

“I feel so bad that…can’t see my daughter. Like I really feel so bad,” she said through her boyfriend, Carlos Salinas, who acted as an interpreter.

Mari said 11-year-old Dana Gonzalez was a tall, energetic, and athletic fifth grader.

She died May 27 while swimming in the Alameda Creek, a 45-mile-long waterway in Alameda County, about 20 miles from the family’s second-floor apartment.

“Ever since COVID happened, people come out here to get out of …