Still dazed from the impact just moments earlier, a female passenger on the pontoon boat involved in Monday night's accident on Lake Lanier made a desperate call to 911, one of seven received by Hall County dispatchers following the collision that left one boy dead and another missing.
"We’re missing somebody! You’ve got to get here," the woman, who identified herself as Chrissy, said in a 911 tape released Friday. "We're missing some kids!"
But directions were hard to come by in the chaotic aftermath of the crash that badly damaged a pontoon boat driven by Mike Prince, whose two sons sustained the brunt of the impact.
Amy Lynn Harris, a passenger on the fishing boat involved in the collision, was barely understandable in her own call to 911. She, too, couldn't tell rescue crews where the two vessels had collided.
Witnesses including Phil Johnson, fishing with a friend nearby when the crash occurred around 10:30 p.m., eventually provided coordinates to the dispatcher.
But even an immediate response couldn't have saved 9-year-old Jake Prince -- Johnson said he administered CPR to the boy, but "he was pretty much gone" -- and Jake's 13-year-old brother Griffin was nowhere to be found. He remains missing in one of the man-made lake's deepest points, near Buford Dam at Shoal Creek.
Dive teams from Hall, Forsyth and Cobb counties will resume looking for the blond-haired Boy Scout on Monday morning. The divers will suspend their search this weekend due to expected heavy boat traffic on Lake Lanier.
Department of Natural Resources rangers will continue searching, using sonar devices, said DNR spokesman Capt. Mark Padgett.
Closure, for both the Prince family and investigators deciding whether Paul Bennett, driver of the fishing boat, should be charged in the boys' deaths, will be elusive as long as Griffin remains missing. The siblings' step-grandmother, Deneice Prince, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the family is delaying any memorial service until the 13-year-old is located.
Bennett, 44, was charged with boating under the influence Tuesday morning, about three hours after the accident, and could face homicide charges, said DNR Law Enforcement Section Maj. Stephen Adams.
The Cumming man has not made himself available to reporters since bonding out of Hall County Jail Tuesday afternoon. Harris, the sole passenger on the man's 2002 Sea Fox, declined to comment when reached by the AJC Friday, as did Bennett's attorney, Barry Zimmerman.
DNR officials are disclosing little about their investigation. According to Adams, both boats were moving when the collision occurred, though he added, Bennett's boat "was going faster."
"There's a lot of damage to the pontoon boat," Adams said. "That didn't happen by being bumped."
In a message posted on a Facebook memorial page, the parents and older brother of Griffin and Jake Prince thanked the public for their "outpouring of love and concern."
"Michael, Tara and Ryan ask that anyone who wants to help the family to please pray and ask the Lord to help the men and women who are searching for the body of Griffin to be guided and prompted to know where to look in the lake to find him so he can be laid to rest alongside his dear brother Jake," read the post, published Friday morning.
"They are eternally grateful for the things people have done and can feel everyone's prayers and love holding them up."
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