When someone is missing on Lake Lanier, this team takes a dangerous, emotional dive

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

As a member of the Hall County Sheriff’s Office’s dive team, Oliver had been dispatched after the young man had gone down a boat slide on the notorious lake and went under the water. His friends tried to help, but he never came up amid the unseasonably cool May weather.

One of the most painful parts of the expert diver’s job came next, after he made it to the surface with the body.

Oliver, who tries not to remember the victims’ names anymore because it’s just too personal, knew the Stockbridge man had to be delivered to his mother, who was waiting on the nearby shore.

It was Mother’s Day.

“This is someone’s loved one, someone’s son, someone’s uncle, someone’s brother. You know that kind of plays in your mind,” Oliver said.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

The sheriff’s office is hyperaware of the dangers on Lake Lanier this time of year, when boaters and swimmers descend on metro Atlanta waters in search of sunshine and summer-related fun. With Memorial Day in the rearview mirror, it’s officially what the team calls “the season” on the lake, which borders five Georgia counties: Hall, Forsyth, Gwinnett, Lumpkin and Dawson.

Up to 13 million people visit Lake Lanier annually, the team said. The more crowded it gets, the more dangerous the lake becomes.

Trying to provide closure

The Hall County dive team, which held its latest training session May 30 indoors at the Frances Meadows Aquatic Center in Gainesville because of bad weather, prepares for mishaps by training once a month, often on Lake Lanier. The members take part in roughly 13 dives a year while responding to emergencies across much of northern metro Atlanta and northeast Georgia.

The group’s leader, commander Lt. Chris Tempel, estimates there are about two dozen unrecovered bodies in Lake Lanier. He still remembers recovering the body of a 19-year-old in 2021 who was on a rented boat with his friends and jumped into the lake to cool off.

He never resurfaced.

The divers were able to provide the family closure that day, but the memory has stayed with him.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

“You start seeing these people in your sleep. You gotta understand, we’re talking about 25 years of bodies,” said Tempel, whose full-time job is handling prison transports for the sheriff’s office.

The other dive team members also work in various roles at the sheriff’s office. They are deputies, jailers, or people who handle warrants and work at the county courthouse.

Dangers in the depths

The lieutenant, who has been a member of the dive team for several decades, said the cloudy depths of Lake Lanier can prove treacherous. The team is faced with zero visibility and often encounters standing timber that can give out at any moment. In many cases, the trees are wrapped in debris or fishing line that grab and don’t let go. As you get below 80 feet, temperatures drop to about 40 degrees. The light stops penetrating the already murky waters at about 65 feet.

While navigating the dark waters four years ago under the thrice-replaced bridge at Clarks Bridge Park, Tempel was surrounded by blackness as he searched for a drowning victim amid a maze of rebar, fishing rope and string that had formed over time in the northeast portion of the lake.

He was lost.

“It’s like you can just picture being blindfolded, climbing through a building that had been demolished,” he explained. “That’s what you’re crawling through. But you’re underwater.”

About 10 years earlier, Tempel said he was searching for a suicide victim under the roughly 50-foot-tall Thompson Bridge when he felt something heavy pushing him down. A large industrial tarp used to protect cars from the repainting of the bridge had fallen into the water.

Tempel found himself wrapped in fishing string, so he quickly looked toward his former dive commander, John Marshall, who cut it. But they were still pinned by the tarp and running out of oxygen, working blindly.

It was black as night in the deep waters under the bridge, he said. After finally getting free and finding their way to the surface, both men looked at their oxygen tanks and exhaled.

Tempel had about 10 minutes of air left; Marshall had just five. His device was honking and glowing red.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

“I was very, very happy to see sunlight, very happy,” Tempel said. “I was scared to death. I thought we were gone, I’m not gonna lie.”

But they weren’t safe yet. Those fears had led them to ascend too quickly, so the men had to fill up their tanks again and go back down to 15 feet to prevent decompression sickness or illness. He equated it to not opening a bottle of soda too quickly. If you open the top slowly, the gases will stay in place.

A pressure problem

Only one team member has been injured during a dive. In 2012, Andy Long was unable to clear pressure in his head and sinuses as he tried to retrieve a young drowning victim who had fallen off a boat and was in the water about 110 feet down near Buford Dam on the south end of the lake.

Tempel said Long panicked and inflated his buoyancy compensator (basically a more professional and high-tech life jacket), which caused him to rocket to the top and blow out his eardrums because he wasn’t able to get rid of that pressure quickly enough.

“It hurt pretty bad. I knew what had happened. I had to go to the doctor, and it took about a year for me to recover,” said Long, who blew out his ears again a year later and now monitors the equipment on their large gray-and-silver pontoon boat, including the sonar device and drones.

After the second incident, which happened at a “nasty pond,” the doctor told him he should “better hold off on diving for a while.”

For visitors to the lake, Tempel stressed that having a relaxing time can prove dangerous bebause it often melts away fears of the water. He noted that sometimes tragedy results from bad decision-making. Many drowning victims don’t wear life jackets, while others have been found to have drugs and alcohol in their systems. In addition, the swimming areas are shallow but can drop off without warning. The vast majority of the victims are unfamiliar with the lake and come from outside the area, he said.

Joining the team

The dive team’s roots date to the late 1960s, started because of a need for public safety following the creation of Lake Lanier the previous decade. Now, other dive teams in the metro area are in Cobb, Forsyth, Gwinnett and Clayton counties.

The Hall team consists of about 10 members, and all are certified divers. Stress from the job, however, causes many to leave after about two to five years.

If there is a vacancy, the dive commander will hold tryouts, conducting open water training and personal interviews. Then the new members embark on an eight-day “boot camp.”

“If you apply for the team and you make it through open water,” Tempel said, “you’re on the team because I’ve got openings.”

During the recent training session, Oliver helped teach two new members, Jailer Tyler Guthrie and Deputy Michael Mitchell, how to be comfortable in their full-face diving masks. To simulate the dangerous fishing lines and standing timber that compose much of the lake, the divers went into an entanglement box — essentially a giant square box of PVC pipe that has string tied to it — which they had to cut.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

A change in perspective

On a normal assignment, the team gets a call and heads to the scene, where they speak with witnesses and try to get a location. Once that happens, they search with sonar, use a Remotely Operated Vehicle to confirm the body, then deploy a cage with a line the diver uses to get to it.

For years, Tempel would also speak to family members, feeling a mother’s hugs and sorrow. He did that until he started having nightmares. Now, the team turns the recovered bodies over to fire crews or the coroner.

Despite everything he has witnessed, Tempel said he has no problem taking his family to the lake — as long as they stay vigilant. They’ve eaten fish caught in the lake, and Tempel has dived in practically every nook and cranny you can think of.

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

The other team members also keep a watchful eye on their loved ones in the water, especially after recovering several young drowning victims over the years. One was a 5-year-old boy the team found in a Gwinnett retention pond behind an apartment complex in March.

Oliver said that was tough on all of them.

When he’s at his neighborhood pool with his wife and four children, Oliver said he tries to relax and have fun, but he often can’t. He keeps his eyes focused on his family and even neighbors he’s never met.

“You’re constantly watching,“ he said. ”You are now the lifeguard.”