An 18-year-old who had graduated from high school hours earlier drowned in Lake Allatoona this weekend while playing a game in which a shopping cart is launched off the dock into the water, authorities said.
Chance Werner, of Euharlee, was playing the game with other teens and an adult at Dock D at the Holiday Harbor Marina in Bartow County just before midnight on Saturday. Witnesses said he had just graduated from high school on Saturday, authorities said.
“This is a tragedy for this young man just as he was starting the next stage in his life,” said Melissa Cummings, spokeswoman for Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
Werner and two other young men were pushing each other into the lake in the shopping cart and pulling the cart back up with a rope, according to Bartow County Sheriff Clark Millsap.
Typically, when people play the game, the cart is tied to a pole at the dock. But, in this instance, the rope was tied to the cart and Werner’s belt loop, Cummings said. It’s unclear if anyone was inside the cart.
When the cart was pushed off the dock, it dragged Werner down into about 30 feet of water, where he drowned, she said.
DNR officers patrolling the lake were called to the dock at 12:07 a.m. Sunday. Bartow County police and fire also responded. The body was recovered at 2:50 a.m. Sunday.
“We don’t want people playing games with water like this,” Cummings said. “It’s an accident waiting to happen — kids playing with ropes and heavy objects.”
This is the first drowning of the holiday weekend, and the first in Lake Allatoona this year, she said.
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