After three months spent searching the murky waters and shoreline of Lake Lanier, crews on Wednesday recovered the body of Dorian Adonis Pinson. The 24-year-old from Greenville drowned April 18 while swimming with friends near Sunrise Cove Marina, officials say.
DNR game wardens located Pinson’s body in 117 feet of water using sector scan sonar. A specialized nonprofit search and recovery team from Wisconsin recovered his body using a Remote-Operated-Vehicle.
According to DNR Law Enforcement Public Affairs Officer Mark McKinnon, the day he drowned, Pinson and two others either jumped or fell from a rented pontoon boat into the lake. “They were unable to make it back to the boat due to wind. Two of the subjects were rescued by a passing boat. The third [Pinson] went under and did not resurface,” he says.
After the drowning, rescuers searched the lake for five days using side scan and sector scan sonar. DNR Aviation also flew over the area several times.
“The search was difficult. The water was 130 feet deep with standing timber covering the bottom,” says McKinnon. He adds that the game wardens covered over 300 acres of the lake during the initial search using a grid search pattern. On the sixth day, they transitioned to surface searches and shore sweeps, which continued daily.
The operation was a cooperative effort of Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement game wardens, Hall County Sheriff’s Office deputies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Bruce’s Legacy Search and Recovery, which specializes in locating and recovering hard-to-find drowning victims across the nation.
Following the recovery, officials sent Pinson’s body to the GBI Crime Lab. The DNR Law Enforcement Critical Incident Reconstruction Team is still investigating.
