A 30-year-old Mena area woman drowned Saturday afternoon after being sucked into the culvert of a low-water bridge in a spillway off Lake Hinkle, west of Waldron in Scott County, according to the Scott County sheriff ’s office.
Sheriff’s Lt. D.J. Pyles said Jodie Hogan was declared dead at Mercy Hospital in Waldron on Saturday evening.
He said Hogan was with three friends who had decided to go swimming in the lake’s spillway near the low-water bridge, which wascovered by heavy rain runoff. He said she apparently didn’t know the bridge was there when she and one of her friends got into the water.
She was sucked into the culvert pipe and the friend tried to pull her out, Pyles said. But the current was too strong and Hogan was sucked into the pipe, where she got stuck. Her friends were finally able to pull her out, but not before she had lost consciousness.
The friends unsuccessfully tried to revive her and called for medical help. She was rushed to the hospital in Waldron but could not be revived, Pyles said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 8 on 07/30/2013