A man’s disappearance on a lake after drifting away from the shore on an airbed has left two friends traumatised after they watched the horror unfold in front of them.
Pals George Lee, 21, and Ryan Hornby, 22, were unable to save the man as he shouted for help while struggling to stay on the inflatable.
The more he struggled, the further out he went and eventually he leapt off and attempted to swim back to dry land, but after going under and then resurfacing, he went back under the water again and the two mates never saw him again.
All this happened on the hottest day of the year (June 17), at Mammoth Lake in Watermead Park in Leicester, and try as they might, they were simply helpless to the man’s situation, being unable to save him.
Ryan told LeicestershireLive: “We were just at the edge the shallow bit of the lake trying to seeing how cold it was. There was another group near us and one of them got on the airbed on the water and just drifted off.
“He went under and came back up and he looked at us dead in the eye and shouted for help.”
Ryan and George tried to help him, but could not wade through the mud and realised there was nothing else they could do.
“He just disappeared under the water,” George said. “There was not much we could do – it was horrible because he had been shouting, but nobody could do anything about it.”
They alerted emergency services, and search and rescue teams arrived – with Leicestershire Police and firefighters searching the area ever since.
Ryan said they tried to search for the man, but he was “nowhere to be seen”.
“It was horrible,” he added. “We haven’t been able to get away from it, we’re traumatised.”
Police are continuing to deploy search and rescue boats and drones.
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Mammoth Lake is the biggest body of water in the park and used to be part of a quarry.
Detective Superintendent Michelle Keen said on Sunday (June 19): “We’re treating this as a missing person enquiry and we are continuing to search both the lake and Watermead Park itself to try and locate the man. Unfortunately to date, a co-ordinated search involving multiple agencies – as well as a specialist police search advisor (POLSA) – has not led to him being located.
“We are now working closely with specialists to identify the next steps to locate the missing male. We have officers in contact with the family of the male and supporting them at this distressing time.
“While a number of people who were in Watermead Park have been spoken to, I’d still ask anyone who was in the area on Friday evening, but has not yet spoken to police to do so.”
Anyone who was in the park at the time and has information relevant to the inquiry is asked to contact Leicestershire Police as a matter of urgency by telephoning 101 and quoting incident 612 of June 17.
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