We’re confused too.
Nightmare Lake
Georgia’s notorious Lake Lanier has claimed another victim in what authorities say was a bizarre electrocution incident. That’s right: in a grim and counterintuitive tragedy, they’re saying someone jumped into a lake, where they were killed by electricity.
The 24-year-old Thomas Shepard “Shep” Milner apparently jumped off his family’s dock for a swim, where he started screaming, prompting family and friends to try to rescue him, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A neighbor in a boat jumped out to rescue Milner and immediately felt “a burning sensation,” the newspaper reports. He swam back to the dock to turn off a power box that was seemingly the source of the danger, and dragged Milner back to shore. But Milner, transported to a local hospital, died the next day.
His mother told local broadcaster WSB-TV that the “dock was less than 3 years old and was outfitted with electricity by a licensed electrician. I would encourage dock owners to check their electricity and repair promptly.”
Haunted Waters
Besides Milner’s death, people are searching the lake for a 27-year-old man who went missing on Saturday, according to the AJC. The lake’s other victim, 61-year-old Tracy Smith, was seen swimming away from a boat and was later found dead after a search that involved sonar.
In the case of the electrocution incident, investigators have not determined how the water became electrified, though the neighbor turning off the power box sounds like an important clue.
Regardless, Milner’s death — and the other incidents this past weekend — underscore the deadliness of Lake Lanier, which has acquired urban legend status over the past decades.
According to an Oxford American piece in 2021, roughly 500 people had died in its waters since the manmade lake’s creation in the 1950s, and 200 since 1994.
Some even say the lake is haunted by a ghost, while others speculate that it’s cursed because of unmarked graves that were flooded by its creation. Futurism‘s official position, of course, is that ghosts are not real.
More on electrocution: Moon’s Surface Could Electrocute Astronauts, Scientists Warn
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