ELM SPRINGS -- Crews spent Sunday night and into the early morning Monday searching for a Springdale man who disappeared in Lake Elmdale.
Family members said Jesse Spigner, 35, jumped into the lake to save his dog.
Lake Elmdale
The city of Elm Springs owns the shoreline of Lake Elmdale, and the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission is responsible for the upkeep of the lake.
Water skiing is not allowed on the lake. The lake is popular for fishing, mostly from the shoreline, said Cpl. Kevin Eubanks, with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission. Lake Elmdale was built in 1953, according to Game & Fish history. It was rehabilitated and its levee repaired in the 1990s, Eubanks said.
Source: Staff report
Spigner was the first person to help anyone who needed it, sister Cindy Myers said Monday.
He was fixing a friend's boat and took it out to test it in the lake, she said.
"His dog had jumped in the water, and he was scared that his dog was going to get hit by the propeller," Myers said.
The dog resurfaced but family members on the boat didn't see Spigner.
"He was helping everybody," Myers said.
A 911 call came in about 7:10 p.m. Sunday, said Jason Hiatt, Elm Springs police chief. The Cave Springs Fire Department and Elm Springs Police Department were the first two agencies on the scene, Hiatt said. Firefighters used a borrowed boat to start the search, he said.
The Arkansas Game & Fish Commission was notified at 7:24 p.m., according to an agency spokesman. Dive teams from Benton and Washington counties, their emergency management offices and other local agencies also responded.
About 40 to 50 people were involved in the search Sunday night into Monday morning with four search boats, said Lt. Bill Ruby with the Game & Fish Commission.
Several witnesses directed first responders to an area between 75 to 100 yards off shore, Ruby said. That initial area was searched and expanded to broader sweeps of the lake.
The man jumped into the lake from an 18-foot pontoon boat and struggled in the water, witnesses told authorities. Spigner was not wearing a life jacket, Ruby said.
There were about four or five boats on the lake Sunday when he arrived, Ruby said.
The search was called off at 4 a.m. Monday, but a boat was back in the water by about 9 a.m., Ruby said.
A single boat patrolled midmorning Monday, sweeping a grid near the dock with side-scan sonar. More boats were coming, Ruby said. Crews started gathering at the lake by noon.
The lake is about 18 feet to 25 feet deep and has no real current, although a channel does cut through the base of the lake, Ruby said.
Crews searched the northwest corner of the lake near the boat dock Monday.
NW News on 08/18/2015