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1 hunter's body found in Ky. lake; 2 missing

Crews were searching a western Kentucky lake Monday for two young hunters missing since their boat overturned, killing one of the four aboard.
/ Source: The Associated Press

Crews were searching a western Kentucky lake Monday for two young hunters missing after their boat overturned, killing one of the four aboard.

A day earlier, the body of one hunter was recovered from the lake, and a fourth teen was rescued from the cold water soon after the small boat capsized Saturday.

Searchers found the body of 18-year-old Trevor Williams in Little Bear Creek on Kentucky Lake, said Marshall County Coroner Mitchell Lee. He identified the rescued survivor as Tyler Heathcott.

Shane James pulled Heathcott out of the choppy waters onto a pontoon boat about 300 to 400 yards from shore. James was remodeling a house near Kentucky Lake in Gilbertsville when a neighbor alerted him that someone was in the water.

When James reached him, the young duck hunter was wearing a life jacket but was so cold and exhausted that he could not even wave his hands as his rescuers approached, James said.

"He was just barely conscious," James said in a phone interview Monday. "He could talk just enough to say that he couldn't move. He was just blue and freezing to the touch."

'Quality kids'
James said he and the neighbor wrapped the teen in a sweatshirt and a tarp on the pontoon. He said the teen later told him that three others had fallen in the lake near Paducah, but he didn't know where they were.

James said he returned to look for other survivors but only found hip waders, tennis shoes and some floating debris.

Williams did not have on a life jacket when his body was recovered, said Lee, who did not name the two missing hunters.

Williams and Heathcott were seniors who started two seasons on the offensive line for the Mayfield High School football team, said head coach Joe Morris. Morris said he was told one of the missing hunters also was a student and football player there. He called the good friends who loved the outdoors "three quality kids who had a great work ethic."

"We all knew they hunted all the time," Morris said. "That's what they enjoyed doing."