BRIDGTON, Maine — A search remains underway for a 19-year-old Hollis Center man who is presumed dead after falling from a pontoon boat on Long Lake shortly before noon Wednesday.
Cpl. John MacDonald of the Maine Warden Service said late Wednesday afternoon that the missing man was a passenger in a rented pontoon boat with seven others, including three adults, two teenagers and two toddlers. The families are from Maine and Texas.
According to MacDonald, the 19-year-old was riding on the front of the pontoon boat when he fell overboard and went beneath the watercraft.
Passengers on the pontoon boat indicated the man came in contact with the boat after he fell and said that they saw him floating briefly before he disappeared beneath the surface of the water, MacDonald said. He said that the man was not wearing a life jacket.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, divers from the Maine Warden Service and the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office were attempting to recover the man’s body in about 40 feet of water, MacDonald said.
The recovery operation’s location on Long Lake is very close to the Bridgton and Naples town line.
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