A 35 year old Nashville woman lost her life on Center Hill Lake over the weekend.
The body of Aimee McCray was recovered in about 65 feet of water Sunday afternoon at Hurricane Marina.
According to authorities, McCray was with some friends on a houseboat moored at the marina when she was last seen around 11:30 p.m. Saturday night. Authorities suspect McCray may have accidentally fallen off the boat and drowned but an autopsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death.
After discovering her missing Sunday morning, McCray’s friends called 911. Central dispatch received the call at 9:20 a.m. of a missing person on the lake.
Members of the TWRA, Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad, DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department, and DeKalb EMS responded.
“We recovered the body of an adult female from Hurricane Marina. There is an investigation on-going. We do not have any indications that there was any foul play. It appears to be an accident,” TWRA Sergeant Jon Ryan told WJLE.
“We used TWRA boat side scan sonar but were unable to find anything with that. The Rescue Squad dropped their submersible camera and were able to locate what we believed to be a body. A Putnam County Rescue Squad diver then came and dove down and was able to recover the body,” added Sergeant Ryan.
“We got a call that someone was missing off a houseboat and found some evidence that maybe that she might have fallen into the water,” Joe Johnson of the Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad told WJLE. “We came down and the TWRA came with us. They (TWRA) tried to find the body with sonar but was unsuccessful. We did move the big boat (houseboat) out from the marina and where we suspected there might be someone we sent down an underwater camera that we have and we were able to locate the body in about 65 feet of water at the dock right under the boat slip. Our divers don’t have enough equipment to dive in cold water so we called the Putnam County Rescue Squad and they sent their divers over. They have insulated wet suits. We waited about an hour and a half for them to arrive. One of the divers went down and the other was on standby. The diver went down and followed the rope that was attached to our camera and he went straight to the body and brought her back up,” added Johnson.
Deputy Medical Examiner Terry Martin was also on the scene. After McCray’s body was recovered from the lake it was loaded on a boat and brought to shore at around 4:00 p.m. where it was then transported by DeKalb EMS to the hospital.
Johnson thanked members of the Smithville-DeKalb County Rescue Squad, the TWRA, and the Putnam County Rescue Squad for their help.