Body found months after wind pushed SC man from boat in Georgia lake, officials say
A body was recovered from a popular Georgia lake three months after wind pushed a 24-year-old man away from a boat, officials said.
Dorian Pinson of Greenville, South Carolina, went missing on April 18 after his group took a pontoon boat into the deep waters of Lake Lanier, a recreation area northwest of Atlanta.
Three people from the group were in the water when strong winds caused the boat to drift away from them, Mark McKinnon of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources told McClatchy News at the time. Officials said another boat approached to save the two of the people, but Pinson became exhausted and went under.
Soon after Pinson’s drowning near the Sunrise Cove Marina, officials said crews started to comb the area. But the depth of the water and timber-filled bottom of the lake made the process difficult.
“It is a very large lake, and I believe the busiest lake east of the Mississippi,” McKinnon said. “There’s about 8 million visitors a year to Lake Lanier ... so there’s a lot of traffic.”
Three months after the search began, sonar technology helped officials find Pinson’s body in 117-foot-deep water on Wednesday. A Wisconsin-based nonprofit called Bruce’s Legacy helped pull his remains from the lake, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources said in an emailed statement.
Pinson went to high school in Greenville, WYFF reported. He was on the basketball team at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee before he reportedly pursued a professional basketball career in Canada, Germany and Israel.
“He’d light up any room he’d walk into, and he really didn’t meet a stranger,” his mom, Alicia Pinson, told WHNS in June.
Georgia game wardens, the Hall County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers all participated in the subsequent recovery efforts, according to the state’s department of natural resources. As of Thursday, officials said case is still being investigated, and Pinson’s body was taken to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Body found months after wind pushed SC man from boat in Georgia lake, officials say."
