Rescue Crews Find Body Of Missing Claremore Lake Boater

Thursday, March 13th 2014, 5:55 pm

By: Tess Maune

Two men were thrown from a boat on Claremore Lake, Thursday afternoon; one man was rescued, the body of the other was found in the lake.

19-year-old Jonathan McClure died on the lake Thursday. Deputies say McClure, who was from Claremore, was in the military, home on leave.

Osage SkyNews 6 was over the terrifying scene Thursday afternoon. A boat, in the middle of Claremore Lake, was spinning in circles with neither of its passengers on board.

"This is never a good situation," said Major Coy Jenkins, with the Rogers County Sheriff's Office.

Jenkins said there are more question than answers as to what caused the boaters to lose control.

"Don't know if they hit something in the water or if it was just based upon something with the steering wheel, but there was a sudden jerk, apparently to the mechanical portion of the boat," Jenkins said.

The jerk tossed the two men on the boat into the water. Sheldon Mashburn was rescued by another boater. We spoke with him on the phone, he said he came around a corner and saw just one young man going under water, so, he instinctively raced toward him and pulled him to safety.

But the other man, Jonathan McClure, was nowhere to be found.

"We would ask that everybody pray for these people and the families," said Jenkins.

Multiple agencies were called in to help search for McClure, including a Grand River Dam Authority rescue and recovery team.

"Their equipment is extremely sophisticated," Jenkins said.

After about two and a half hours of searching the water, McClure's body was seen on the GRDA's sonar scan. Officials say he was found close to where the boat lost control, in about 11 feet of water.

"When you're out on waterways, things can happen and you need to be prepared, even though we don't know what type of equipment they had, we certainly want to remind the public to use safety and exercise the use of flotation devices during this time of year," Jenkins said.

Jenkins said Mashburn was taken to a hospital, but was not seriously injured.