A 13-year-old boy who police warned not to play in NIU’s west campus lagoon drowned Friday.

The DeKalb Fire Department pulled Jia Wei Wang’s body from the lagoon at 7:58 p.m. Friday, assistant fire chief Reuben Nelson said.

Firefighters found Wang’s body on the bottom of the lagoon in about five feet of water, Nelson said.

The boy was not stuck in the lagoon’s muddy bottom, Nelson said.

No one has ever drowned in the lagoons before, chief deputy coronor Earl Tischler said.

Wang was playing in the lagoon with another boy earlier in the day when a University Police officer told the children to stay out of the water, said Diane Strand, NIU’s Assistant Director of Public Information.

“No Swimming” signs are posted at NIU’s east and west lagoons.

Someone called the UPs at 7 p.m. and told them a boy was in the west lagoon.

When the police arrived, they learned a boy had disappeared and that he might be in the west lagoon.

“We did not know for 100 percent that he was there. We were going on the assumption,” Nelson said.

“The little kid there (the boy playing with Wang) said they were trying to swim across the lagoon and one kid didn’t make it,” Nelson said.

Nelson said he thinks the lagoon is about 50 to 75 yards across.

The firefighters established a search pattern and combed the lagoon, Nelson said.

“It was shallow enough for them (the firefighters) to walk through the lagoon and feel whatever they bumped into. On one of the passes they bumped into his body,” Nelson said.

Wang’s funeral was Tuesday.

Hong Dong Wang, the boy’s father, is a Chinese doctoral student in mathematics at NIU.

Mark Thackaberry, Director of NIU’s International Student and Faculty office, said the family is totally supported by the elder Wang’s graduate assistant salary.

The grave, hospital and ambulance fees will cost the family at least $4,000 or $5,000, Thackaberry said.

“We would like people who feel they can to help,” he said.

“A financial burden like this cannot be paid off by (the salary of) a graduate assistantship.

Anyone who would like to make a donation can write a check to the NIU Foundation International Emergency Fund and send it to the International Student and Faculty Office, NIU, DeKalb, Ill., 60115.