A man is dead and a teenage male is in critical condition after being pulled from a local lake on Thursday.
At about 6:35 p.m., two males were taken to a hospital after possible drownings at Joe Pool Lake were reported to the Grand Prairie Fire Department.
Divers with the department quickly located the men, a 39-year-old man and his 17-year-old son, underwater near the beach area at Lynn Creek Park.
The father was pronounced dead at the hospital. Though the son survived the drowning, he is not expected to live. Neither were wearing life jackets.
Fire Chief Bill Murphy said, “[The son] has a pulse, but essentially, he has no brain function, and he is not going to recover.”
He added, “They’ve made contact with his mother in Mexico, and she’s trying to get up here. And more than likely, when she gets here, they will take him off life support.”
Murphy said that wearing life vests is one of the easiest ways to prevent drowning incidents. He also said that he had never seen a drowning fatality where the people were wearing safety gear.
He warned that Joe Pool Lake is an especially dangerous place to swim without a life jacket.
“There are drop-offs, [and] there are holes out there,” Murphy said. “You step off in one, you’re in waist-deep water. Next minute, you’re in 10 feet of water.”
“Last year, we had a young man drowned out there, who had been a lifeguard. So, it doesn’t matter what your capabilities are. It can happen to anyone, anytime. That’s why it’s so important to wear the life jackets,” the fire chief added.
Murphy expects the lake’s drowning fatalities to increase from last year, as he said the number is unusually high for this early in June.