(WatchDogReport.org) – An 18-year-old Colorado teenager named Jesse Hamric was killed in Virginia on July 4 after jumping into an allegedly electrified lake and drowning. Friends and family members explained that he was at a Fourth of July party at a house with a dock in Huddleston’s Smith Mountain Lake.
Two of his friends said that once they saw him struggling to swim in the lake, they tried to jump in to get him out but felt a strong electric shock. While they managed to rescue him a couple of minutes later, he died at a hospital nearby, as he was severely electrocuted.
In a statement, local police said that while Hamric’s friends were also electrocuted when they tried to save him, they survived as they didn’t spend as much time in the electrified water. Experts explained that water becomes dangerously electric every time faulty wiring on docks or boats releases energy.
Authorities said that while Hamric’s cause of death remains unclear, medical examiners are performing an autopsy on his body to determine it. They added that a boat lift was at the accident’s scene, noting that some police officers believe that a malfunction could be behind the teenager’s death.
Investigators told WWVA that what caused Hamric’s death was stray voltage from a dock, after testing the water from the lake and determining there were high levels of electricity on it. They added that Hamric was a football and baseball player in Colorado’s Steamboat Springs High School, where his father was the principal and his mom a teacher.
People on social media said that the town was shocked and saddened by his death as he was a “happy” and “beloved” member of the community. The high school had a prayer vigil for him a day after his death at a Catholic church. His friend and student Alex Schwab said on his Twitter account that he couldn’t believe what happened to Hamric as he was a good and charismatic person.
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