Preliminary investigation revealed that on the afternoon of august 22, 2012, a friend of operator/victim 1 called for assistance when she and operator/victim 1 was thrown off the vessel/pwc and went under water where operator/victim 1 never recovered to safety.
 
Through further investigation, two witnesses who had been on the lake fishing saw operator/victim 1 and his passenger speeding through a no wake zone proceeding from the main water of lake tillery to the lilly's bridge access area.  Witnesses stated that operator/victim 1 and his passenger were not wearing pfds.  The witnesses stated that operator/victim 1 started doing 360s in a rapid manner and jumping his own wake.  It was at this time that operator/victim 1 and his passenger were thrown from the pwc.  Another boater who was in the area saw the incident and went over to the passenger first and pulled her from the water.  Once the passenger was on board, both the boater and the passenger looked to the location where operator/victim 1 had been and saw that operator/victim 1 had gone under.  The boater and the passenger of the vessel/pwc looked for victim 1, but was unable to locate him.
 
At approximately 8:45pm, rescue and recovery attempts began for operator/victim 1.  After several hours of searching, rescue and recovery found the body at approximately 1:15am on august 23, 2012.
 
In conclusion, operator/victim 1 was not wearing a pfd which is required to ride/operate a pwc.  Operator/victim 1 and his passenger were thrown from the vessel/pwc while maneuvering the vessel/pwc in tight rapid circles.  In my opinion, if operator/victim 1 had been wearing his pfd, operator/victim 1 would have been kept above water long enough to be rescued or could have swam to shore.

MT GILEAD                     