Lance Heniger. Courtesy photo: Facebook
FLAMING GORGE RESERVOIR, Wyo., June 25, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) – A man from North Ogden who died Saturday after drowning in Flaming Gorge Reservoir has been identified by officials.
The deceased is Lance Heninger, 48, according to a press release from Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell and County Coroner Dale Majhanovich.
Heninger and two companions, Carson West, also from North Ogden, and Scott Gorder, from Ogden, were fishing from Gorder’s boat about 3.5 miles southeast of Buckboard Marina late Saturday afternoon when the incident occurred, the press release said.
The three men launched their boat from Buckboard early Saturday morning and competed in the Ducks Unlimited Fishing Derby, officials said. Most recently it was known that they fish in the Big Bend Area.
“When the men did not return to a Manila residence late Saturday night as planned, concerned families and friends checked the parking lot at Buckboard and found their pickup truck and an empty boat trailer there,” the press release said.
“Then, around midnight, the sheriff’s office was notified.”
Members of the Sheriff’s Office Naval Unit disembarked from Buckboard aboard the patrol boat docked there and began a search.
At around 1.30 a.m., the delegates found West on the east bank of the gorge. Fifteen minutes later they found Gorder, still in the water. Both men were taken aboard the patrol boat and back across the lake to Buckboard and thence to Sweetwater County’s Memorial Hospital in Rock Springs, where they were treated and released. Gorder had been in the water for about 10 hours, officials said.
Gorder and West informed MPs that the wind had increased sharply on Saturday around 4:00 p.m. while fishing and the water was very choppy.
“One wave flooded the boat and the men began to disembark, but another wave completely flooded the boat and all three went into the water,” the press release said.
Gorder and West wore life jackets, but Heninger did not, according to the press release.
After Gorder and West were turned over to the ambulance staff at Buckboard, the naval unit, along with guards from the Wyoming Game & Fish Department, returned to their search in their own boat and found Heninger’s body in a cove along the east bank of the gorge at about 4 am Sunday.
Lowell said the sheriff’s office is still investigating.
Gephardt Daily will learn more about this development as information becomes available.
Buckboard Marina is located at the north end of Flaming Gorge Reservoir in southwest Wyoming.
Courtesy photo: Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office
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