WATCH: There’s been another apparent drowning on Harrison Lake. A boat capsized late yesterday – sending two people in the water. one man was rescued – a second person is still missing. There have been three drownings on the lake this year, prompting calls for something to be done. Grace Ke reports.
Rescue crews have completed their search efforts for a missing boater on Harrison Lake Thursday and is now calling it a recovery.
Twenty-seven-year-old Nashwan Ahmet from Nashville, TN had been boating with his nephew from Calgary and two of the nephew’s friends Tuesday afternoon when Ahmet and one of the friends decide to go for a swim.
That’s when a passing boater heard screaming and spotted someone in the water.
“You could see somebody flailing in the water. There was one in the water,” said rescuer Trevor Delaney. “We fired up right away, got over there immediately, and threw out some life jackets to them. The one person in the water that we could see was in terrible distress and was just about going down when I grabbed his arm.”
“I pulled him up to the ladder and then we thought everything was fine and then he said, ‘There’s one more in the water.'”
The swimmer who was rescued was released from hospital.
Family members of Ahmet gathered at the lake Wednesday waiting for any word from searchers.
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“I know there’s a slim chance he might be alive, but one can only pray and hope he’s’ still out there,” said family member Heja Mahmood.
Crews searched the waters for five hours before suspending their efforts Tuesday night. On Wednesday, the team used sonar to continue their search for Ahmet.
On Thursday, the RCMP underwater recovery team was on the lake with sonar but so far have not found Ahmet’s body. The team will return later in the month.
WATCH: Missing boater on Harrison Lake
The rescue effort comes after three recent drownings on the lake near Harrison Hot Springs.
A woman in her 20s died on Friday.
Identified by her employer as Lyndsay, she worked at the Beatnicks Bistro in Langley. Staff have set up a memorial to the young woman.
On Saturday the company wrote on their Facebook page:
Tonight we are grieving the unexpected & tragic loss of one of our lovely young servers – someone we all loved very much.
Her death comes just a week after the friends and family of two young men who drowned in June released a public service announcement.
In it they called for signs to be erected around the lake, warning people about currents and cold temperatures.
The emotional video was put together after 25-year-old Gary Duong and 23-year-old Daniel Reid drowned in the lake’s frigid waters.
Duong and Reid were two of about 14 people on a raft on Harrison Lake on the afternoon of June 8.
Both ended up in the water, and were later found not to have reached shore by swimming. They were reported missing at that time, but an immediate search of the area was not successful.
On June 18 and 19, the men, both deceased, were spotted by other people on the lake.
With files from Yuliya Talmazan, Jeremy Hunka and Jon Azpiri
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