The body of a Roswell man was pulled from Lake Lanier on Monday, concluding a nearly two-day search by rescue and recovery crews after he fell off a Jet Ski, officials said.
Walter Juarez Guardado, 37, was located by sonar and recovered by divers in about 20 feet of water near East Bank Park around noon, according to Georgia Department of Natural Resources spokesperson Mark McKinnon.
Guardado was a father of two girls, Channel 2 Action News reported.
“He cares about family a lot. He cares about his daughters and his mother,” his eldest daughter, Angie Juarez, told the news station as she waited for news from the shoreline Monday. “Everything he did was for us.”
Guardado’s girlfriend called 911 around 5:40 p.m. Saturday after he fell off the personal watercraft and swam to shore at East Bank Park near Buford Dam Road, officials said. He was operating the vehicle without a life jacket, McKinnon said.
“A witness on shore stated that they believe the man swam back out to retrieve his (personal watercraft), went under, and didn’t resurface,” McKinnon said.
Crews in Gwinnett and Hall counties canvassed the water for about two hours until nightfall Saturday using aviation and boat-mounted sonar, Gwinnett fire spokesperson Andy Lane said. The next morning, they were back in the lake using the sonar equipment and conducting a grid search.
The search resumed at 8:30 a.m. Monday and ended nearly four hours later. The victim is the 12th person to drown at the lake so far this year, officials said.
East Bank Park, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility, is situated on the southern corner of the lake and is open 24 hours a day, according to Lake Lanier’s website.
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