2 found dead in Lake Maumelle

Water searched after witnesses reported one flailing boater

Boats from agencies including the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and the Pulaski County sheriff’s office search Thursday morning for two boaters who disappeared Wednesday at Lake Maumelle.
Boats from agencies including the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and the Pulaski County sheriff’s office search Thursday morning for two boaters who disappeared Wednesday at Lake Maumelle.

Two boaters missing since Wednesday afternoon on Lake Maumelle were found dead in the lake Thursday, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission reported.

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An Arkansas Game and Fish Commission boat uses sonar to search Thursday morning for two boaters who disappeared at Lake Maumelle. The men’s unoccupied boat was seen circling Wednesday, officials said.

Divers recovered the bodies of Joseph Greenway, 29, and Anthony Mayfield, 27, about 2:30 p.m. in the western part of the lake near Vista Park and the Arkansas 10 bridge. The Game and Fish Commission, along with crews from several central Arkansas sheriff's offices and fire departments, had been searching for the men since their unoccupied boat was seen circling the recreational waters 22 hours earlier.

The men were not wearing life jackets, but it was unclear how they died, Game and Fish Commission spokesman Keith Stephens said.

The Pulaski County sheriff's office was called to the lake about 4:35 p.m. Wednesday after two people saw a man in the water next to a small green fishing boat, known as a johnboat. They told deputies the man slipped under the water about two or three minutes after they saw him, according to a sheriff's office report.

Another witness saw the flat-bottomed watercraft traveling east under the Arkansas 10 bridge when a man "came flying out of the boat," the report states.

A second boater is not mentioned in those accounts.

A fisherman, a sheriff's deputy and firefighters from the West Pulaski and Little Rock fire departments attempted to rescue the man, but did not find him, according to the report. Dive teams and search boats were then called to the 14-square-mile lake.

A sonar-equipped search boat led divers with the Grant County sheriff's office to the bodies of Greenway and Mayfield on Thursday, according to the Game and Fish Commission.

Greenway, of Paron, was found in 11 feet of water east of the Arkansas 10 bridge. Mayfield, of Perryville, was found about 6 feet away in 18 feet of water.

The average depth of the man-made reservoir is 24.7 feet. The maximum depth is 60 feet.

The bodies of Greenway and Mayfield were taken to the state Crime Laboratory for autopsy. Their deaths are the first of the year on an Arkansas lake or river, Stephens said. The Game and Fish Commission recorded nine such deaths in 2015.

Stephens said none of the nine was wearing life jackets.

"We preach in all our boating-safety courses to make sure you have those on," he said. "They just don't do much good otherwise."

Arkansas law requires boats to be equipped with life jackets. It does not require life jackets to be worn.

Pulaski County sheriff's spokesman Capt. Carl Minden said an agency search boat was damaged Thursday, but the two deputies on board were not injured. The boat began taking on water and tipped over. Minden said the cause of the leak was unclear.

"It didn't help that it's extremely windy out there," he added. "With the wind, it makes it a little hard to control. That's just the danger of water rescue."

Metro on 02/12/2016


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