PLUMERVILLE (Arkansas) – A WOMAN whose car plunged off a dead-end road into a lake in rainy, dark weather reportedly told the sheriff she tried to rescue her three young sons from the vehicle but lost her grip on them in the water.
The sheriff, who said the boys drowned, said on Monday that investigators were checking her story.
The boys – ages 8, 7 and 2 – were recovered from Lake Brewer after the car went into the water at about 1530 CDT (1630 Singapore Time) on Sunday, in a rural area of central Arkansas, and they were pronounced dead at a hospital.
Autopsy results were pending for the boys, but Conway County Sheriff Mike Smith said they drowned. Officials did not release their names. Relatives of the boys gathered on Monday at a rural home near Plumerville.
The woman said she tried to pull the boys to safety from the car but lost her grip on them, Smith told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper of Little Rock.
Smith said no charges had been filed, but said investigators were working to verify the mother’s account.
The car was travelling on Old Highway 92, known as Johnny Walker Road, that dead-ends at the lake. The state highway was relocated years ago when Cypress Creek was dammed to form the reservoir.
A warning sign directs motorists to turn left at the bottom of a hill but the road itself goes straight to the edge of the lake, where there is no other warning sign.
Smith said many people in Conway County, about 48 kilometres west of Little Rock, use the old highway to back boats into the lake, which is a state wildlife management area. The reservoir serves as the main drinking water source for the nearby city of Conway.
It wasn’t clear on Monday morning whether the state or Conway County was responsible for maintaining signs on the old route. — AP
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