An Ellenwood man lost his life while out on Lake Sinclair enjoying the July Fourth holiday.
Christopher Grant Jr., 30, died from accidental drowning when he fell off the personal watercraft (PWC) he was riding.
There were two men on the PWC, according to Baldwin County Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Bradley Towe, who is also the commander of the county’s public safety dive team. The driver of the PWC was wearing a life jacket, but Grant, the passenger, was not.
The PWC overturned, throwing both men into the water.
“They both surfaced, and someone tossed a flotation device to the passenger, but he went under before he could get it,” Towe said.
The dive team received the call from the 911 dispatcher shortly after 4:40 p.m. They responded to Haslam’s Marina beside the railroad trestle over the lake, and set up a command post for the search and rescue operations.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division game wardens, Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office deputies, Baldwin County Emergency Management, and Putnam County Fire Department joined the public safety dive team in the search efforts. Atrium Health Navicent EMS was also on scene.
Witnesses who had seen the PWC overturn pointed the searchers to the location where Grant went under. It was in the area between Optimist Island, also known as Boy Scout Island, and Little Optimist Island, about a 1/4-mile from the command post.
Towe said they used various types of sonar equipment and drones to assist the divers, who alternated going down in teams to search the 18-ft. deep water.
“The water is so murky we can’t see anything at all,” commented one of the divers, Deputy Lt. Brandon Towe, when he came in for a quick break.
Lt. Towe is the younger brother of Deputy Chief Towe.
They searched until sundown when darkness forced them to stop. They all reconvened early the next morning, this time joined by two cadaver dogs—“Felon” with Spalding County Sheriff’s Land, Air, Water Search (LAWS) Unit; and “Zita” from Butts County Sheriff’s Office. The dogs alerted on a couple of areas, which Chief Towe said also corresponded with the previous day’s sonar readings. However, the murkiness of the water from the holiday’s heavy boat traffic hampered the divers’ vision once again.
At sundown on Saturday, the searchers decided to work in shifts throughout the night, scanning the water’s surface with spotlights. A few minutes after midnight, they saw that the body had surfaced. Baldwin County Deputy Coroner Tonya Joyner said no autopsy would be done because she determined it was an accidental drowning.
“We are thankful for the many agencies that assisted us,” Chief Towe said in an email.