A young Texas mother is mourning her husband and their 5-year-old son after the pair apparently drowned Monday while on the boy’s first duck hunting trip with his dad.
Corey Saunders, 26, and his son Nathan left their Quinlan, Texas, home with their chocolate lab, Hunt, before 6 a.m. Monday morning, excited about their first duck hunting trip on Lake Tawakoni, Fox 4 News in Dallas reported. Megan Saunders, 23, hugged her husband and son before going back to sleep with the couple's newborn.
When Corey and Nathan Saunders failed to return by sunset, Megan Saunders grew worried.
"I had the feeling. I just knew," she told Fox 4 News.
Game wardens later that evening found Hunt, who managed to swim ashore. The dog led them to Nathan's body, which the news station reported was found on the surface of the water, in a cluster of tree stumps.
Corey Saunders’ body was found in the 8-foot water Tuesday morning, just feet from where his son was located. Search crews also found the capsized 10-foot boat father and son had taken out on the lake, located about 45 miles east of Dallas.
Family members and other volunteers helped game wardens recover the bodies.
"It sucks trying to find your younger brother that looks up to you, and knowing what you're going to find when you (do) find him," Clayton Thompson said of the search for Corey Saunders. "But you don't want him to be out there by himself."
A GoFundMe page set up by family to help Megan Saunders bury her husband and son described the pair as "inseparable, and always down to hunt." The page has raised more than $42,000 in a single day.
"At this time we are asking for prayers for Megan and all the family to be able to process this tragic accident that took one of the greatest men and smartest little boys you would ever know," the page reads.
Fox 4 News reported that strong thunderstorms the morning Corey and Nathan Saunders went hunting, along with heavy gear weighing down their boat, were likely factors in their deaths. Neither father nor son was wearing a life jacket when their bodies were found.
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