By Christian Boone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Still dazed from the impact moments earlier, a female passenger on the pontoon boat in Monday night’s accident on Lake Lanier made a desperate call to 911, one of seven calls Hall County dispatchers received after the collision that left one boy dead and another missing.
“We’re missing somebody! You’ve got to get here,” the woman, who identified herself as Chrissy, said in a 911 tape released Friday. “We’re missing some kids!”
But directions were hard to come by in the chaotic aftermath of the crash that badly damaged a pontoon boat driven by Mike Prince. Two of his sons sustained the brunt of the impact and were the ones lost.
Amy Lynn Harris, a passenger on the other boat, was barely understandable in her own call to 911. She also couldn’t tell rescue crews where the boats had collided.
Witnesses including Phil Johnson, who was fishing with a friend nearby when the crash occurred around 10:30 p.m., eventually provided coordinates to the dispatcher.
But even an immediate response couldn’t have saved 9-year-old Jake Prince. Johnson said he administered CPR to the boy, but “he was pretty much gone.” Jake’s 13-year-old brother Griffin remains missing in one of the man-made lake’s deepest points, near Buford Dam at Shoal Creek.
Dive teams from Hall, Forsyth and Cobb counties will resume looking for the blond-haired Boy Scout on Monday morning. The divers will suspend their search this weekend due to expected heavy boat traffic.
Department of Natural Resources rangers will keep searching using sonar devices, said DNR spokesman Capt. Mark Padgett.
Closure for the Prince family will be elusive as long as Griffin is missing. The siblings’ step-grandmother, Deneice Prince, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the family is delaying any memorial service until the 13-year-old is found.
Paul Bennett, 44, the driver of the fishing boat that collided with the pontoon, is charged with boating under the influence, and DNR Maj. Stephen Adams said he could face homicide charges.
The Cumming man has not made himself available to reporters since being released on bond Tuesday afternoon from Hall County Jail. Harris, the sole passenger on Bennett’s 2002 Sea Fox, declined to comment when reached by the AJC Friday, as did Bennett’s attorney, Barry Zimmerman.
In a message on a Facebook memorial page, the parents and older brother of Griffin and Jake Prince thanked the public for their “outpouring of love and concern.”
“Michael, Tara and Ryan ask that anyone who wants to help the family to please pray and ask the Lord to help the men and women who are searching for the body of Griffin to be guided and prompted to know where to look in the lake to find him so he can be laid to rest alongside his dear brother Jake,” read the post published Friday morning.
“They are eternally grateful for the things people have done and can feel everyone’s prayers and love holding them up.”
Copyright 2012 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution