Photo by Tyler Wright via DFW Scanner
Update: The body has been recovered. See story here.
Dallas Fire and Rescue will continue searching today for a possible White Rock Lake drowning victim.
DFW Scanner reported a little after 6 p.m. Tuesday that boats and divers were searching for a man who witnesses say jumped from the Mockingbird Bridge and never surfaced.
Dallas Fire-Rescue’s Jason Evans says the search ended before 9 last night and will resume again today.
Bystanders called it in, and two of them reportedly jumped into the water in an attempt to save the jumper, who has not been identified.
If this does prove to be a fatality, it will be the third White Rock Lake drowning in a matter of a couple years.
There was this one in 2012 — a man was photographed swimming in the lake, where it has long been illegal to swim, and even photographed getting out of the lake safely, but later his dead body was found the lake.
Also in 2012 — 57-year-old Joe Cunningham, an experienced paddler, went under and never resurfaced.
Since 1927 when Hallie Gaston (the possible inspiration for the Lady of the Lake legend) drowned, dozens of deaths have occurred in the lake. From a 2011 Advocate story: “In 1934 a small plane crashed into the lake, killing all of its passengers. In summer 1941, 27-year-old swimmer John Ira Howard, who held the world’s record for underwater swimming, died while stunting for friends in White Rock Lake. In 1938, the body of teenage drowning victim J.C. Hacker Jr., a Woodrow graduate, was never recovered.”
