A "hands-around-the-lake" memorial is being planned Friday at the Harrison Hot Springs lagoon where 19-year-old Devin McClelland-Begon drowned Sunday.

"We want to get enough people to reach right around the lagoon," Devin's heart-broken mom Denice Magee said Thursday.

She's hoping a show of public support will help get something done about the lagoon, either to shut it down and fill it in, or to convince the village to hire a lifeguard to watch over those who swim in what's essentially a stagnant, man-made pond.

"We want to do something permanent in Devin's memory so nobody else has to go through what we're going through," Magee said.

Not only has she lost a son whose smile "could light up a room," but police divers have been unable to locate the body in the weeds that grow up to six feet tall in a virtually unbroken strip along the bottom. The search was halted Thursday because legislation limits how long the police divers can work under water.

A side-scanning sonar brought in Monday for the search has so far proved unsuccessful.

"We know he's still in there," Magee sobbed during a telephone interview from her Surrey home, and she worried her son might not be found before the village holds its annual arts festival next week.

But Mayor Ken Becotte said Thursday the village is already closing the lagoon, and it would remain closed until the body is recovered.

"We want to make sure people stay out of the water, out of respect for the family," he said.

In an earlier interview, the mayor said the village council may look at hiring a lifeguard. But there are four signs around the lagoon warning visitors they swim at their own risk, he said.

But Magee called the lagoon a "death trap" that has already claimed too many lives.

"I've talked to a lot of people, and there's been a lot of drownings in this lagoon. I think my son should be the last one to drown here."

"Fill it in so nobody else has to die," she pleaded. "If it happens to somebody else, then Devin died in vain."

Official statistics were not available Thursday, but a veteran search official could only recall three drownings in the past 19 years, making them a relatively rare event.

Kent Harrison Search and Rescue manager Neil Brewer agreed the weeds are hampering the search, but he doesn't believe they caused the drowning, as some are suggesting.

Police said McClelland-Begon was swimming across the lagoon with a friend at about 2:30 p.m. Sunday when he apparently got into trouble and sank. The friend made it back to shore.

Magee said her son was in good physical condition after working as a truck swamper, and had no problems swimming in Okanagan Lake last summer.

"I've never seen him having problems swimming," she said. "Something happened (in the lagoon)."

Her son survived a rare kidney disease, enduring two years of chemotherapy as a baby, only to die a "horrible" death by drowning, Magee said.

"He beat all the odds, and got rid of all the cancer and grew into a tall, handsome young man," she cried. "He could light up a room with his smile."

"Now his drowning is just so wrong."

"He called me from the beach Saturday, and told me he was having a great time," she added. "He had no idea he was sitting at a death trap."

The memorial at the lagoon starts Friday at 6 p.m.