District 21 officers responded Sunday afternoon at approximately 1606hrs, to a report of an individual who went into the water from a drifting vessel and did not resurface on J. Percy Priest Lake in Davidson County, TN.  

Preliminary investigation indicates that Operator and Subject1 were in a Bayliner vessel that had broken down and was drifting in the Cooks Recreation area of the lake.  Subject1 jumped into the lake and decided to attempt to use a rope, that was attached to the vessel, to pull the vessel to the shoreline that was approximately 60 feet away.  

Subject1 began to struggle to swim in the water, and Operator threw 2 boat bumpers to him in an attempt to help him stay afloat.  Subject1 was unable to successfully grab the 2 bumpers.  Seeing that Subject1 was still struggling to stay above the water, Operator jumped in and was able to push Subject1 above the waterline 2 times.  

Operator then also began to struggle to swim and had to abandon his attempts to help Subject1.  Subject1 was not able to make it to the shoreline and was reported missing.

TWRA officers arrived on scene quickly and found Operator sitting on the bank near the incident scene.  Operator was able to give us an approximate location of where Subject1 was last seen swimming and a marker buoy was thrown out to mark the location.   
OEM and Metro Fire responded to assist, and divers recovered Subject1 at approximately 1915hrs in close proximity to where the marker buoy was located.  Water depth was 7ft and water temperature was recorded as 80 degrees.
Next of kin notification was given by Lt. to the sister of Subject1.

PERCY PRIEST RESERVOIR
NASHVILLE                     