Fatal waves at Lake Hefner: Man drowns after going overboard
Man drowns after going overboard at Lake Hefner

By Augie Frost and Brian Sargent

Published: June 6, 2008

Windy conditions and lapping waves made Thursday a bad day to be on the water, let alone wakeboarding on Lake Hefner.

"I would not be out on the lake in these conditions in any sized boat,” said officer Jeff Jones with the Oklahoma City Police Department's lake division.

Rough conditions on the lake Thursday morning claimed the life of one man and left another man in critical condition at an area hospital, District Fire Chief Cecil Clay said. Neither man was identified, but the deceased was said to be in his 50s and the survivor was said to be in his 80s.

City ordinances prohibit wakeboarding and water-skiing on all Oklahoma City bodies of water except Lake Overholser.

Three men violated that law about 11 a.m. when they took their boat out for a wakeboarding session near the dam. As one was being towed, high winds pushed a wave up and over the boat, sending the two in the boat overboard, the wakeboarder told Hugh Fox, the man that called 911.

Fox, a water department employee, was driving along Hefner Road below the dam when the wakeboarder came running down the back side of the dam in his swim trunks and a life-jacket, Fox said. The frantic man told Fox to call 911, saying his friends were in trouble and needed to be rescued.

The two were wearing life-jackets, but the waves overcame both of them, leaving them unconscious and floating in the water, Clay said.

Fox and the wakeboarder went back up to the top of the dam and found the boat banging the rocky shoreline. It was unoccupied, Fox said.

"The boat was just being bashed against the rocks,” he said.

A police boat also became stuck on the shore as it dropped off the first man plucked from the water, the man in his 80s. The second man was found floating in the lake about 11:50 a.m. and was pronounced dead at the scene, Clay said.

The survivor was in critical condition Thursday evening, Clay said. Initially, he was pronounced dead also, but a spokesman with the state medical examiner's office said he was revived by medical staff after he arrived to the hospital.

Winds were gusting to more than 40 mph in the area and waves were as high as 6 feet when the accident happened.

"It's about as rough a day as you're going to see. These conditions couldn't get any worse as far as the wind,” Battalion Chief Mike Kelley said. "Once you get into the rocks, there is no way to keep the vessel off the rocks.”

Master Sgt. Daryl Marang with the lake division, said officers will often advise boaters not to go out on the lake when conditions are as they were Thursday. However, it has been years since the department has practiced "closing” the lake because of rough conditions.

The lake is "boat at your own risk,” he said.

Jones of the lake division said a small boat in rough conditions will take on water from waves, causing its motor to stop and possibly sink.

"Then you're just left drifting,” he said. "Smaller boats are particularly more risky.”