A tragic incident at Jordan Lake has claimed the life of a 19-year-old man, who drowned while attempting to retrieve a flotation device that had drifted away. The Chatham County Sheriff's Office reported, according to CBS17, that the young man was enjoying an outing with eight friends and one family member, engaging in fishing and swimming, when the incident occurred last night near the intersection of Farrington Road and Martha's Chapel Road.
The call came in to dispatch around 7:30 p.m., when witnesses reported that the young man swam out to reach his floating device and is believed to have grown tired, subsequently going under, the distress heightened by history as this was near the location where, just a week earlier, two boaters had similarly met their demise and their bodies were recovered days later. The sheriff's office, "We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends grieving this heartbreaking loss," Sheriff Mike Roberson said in a statement obtained by WRAL.
Initial emergency response operations commenced soon after the incident was reported and it took crews approximately 3.5 hours to recover the victim's body at around 11:00 p.m., as confirmed by both CBS17 and ABC11. At the time of reporting, authorities had not released the name of the young man pending notification of additional family members.
This latest drowning underscores a somber repetition, a dark reminder of the lake's recent history where just a week before Daniel Garcia Garcia, 25, and Manuel Mauro Sifuentes Soto, 36, had similarly lost their lives in the same vicinity prompting an echo of last week’s tragedy.
