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Official: Friend Pushed Missing Man Into Lake As Joke

Man Pushed Into Water By Friend

POSTED: 6:40 am EDT October 20, 2005

UPDATED: 3:20 pm EDT October 20, 2005

ANDERSON -- Emergency crews have resumed the search for a missing man in Lake Hartwell Thursday.

Officials said a pontoon boat carrying nine adults and four children left the Brown Road boat ramp just after 5 p.m.

Emergency workers were called shortly after 6 p.m. with a report that John Johnson, 32, had apparently fallen off the boat into the water and rescue crews were sent to the scene.

"Apparently, from what we understand right now, [he] was sitting on the front of a boat, the boat stopped. Kind of joking around, one of his friends pushed him in the water. He went under, didn't come up," Anderson County dive team member Don McCowan said.

Johnson is married with two children, and his wife is pregnant with their third.

"I was just horrified, couldn't believe it. But we all had hopes they would find him alive," Johnson's aunt Rosanna Blanding said. "He was very comical. Very comical, loved people, and was just a lot of fun."

Divers are searching an area the size of a football field between Clemson Boulevard and Highway 178.

"We're gonna concentrate on an area the friend of the victim was able to mark on a GPS monitor. Hopefully, with the GPS, we can pinpoint a little better where he may be," McCowan said.

Poor visibility is one of the challenges divers face.

They are using underwater cameras to help in the recovery effort.

"Horrifies us all to think of him in that amount of water and not be found. Hope and pray they find him, body intact," Blanding said.

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