GARLAND COUNTY, Ark. — According to an official with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, officers responded to a boat accident on Lake Ouachita Wednesday evening, March 23, in the Ouachita State Park area.
Officers recovered the bodies of a 10-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy Wednesday night and are now looking for an adult who is currently missing.
Officials believe the adult is 37-year-old Steven Garnett, of Benton, who is a relative of the two children.
Keith Stephens, Arkansas Game and Fish Chief of Communications said drownings are always a tragedy, but especially when kids are involved.
"I can't even imagine. I have two kids my own and something like that wipes out your family one time. I just can't even imagine it," he said.
The dive team is returning Thursday morning, in what officials are considering a "recovery operation."
Officials spent Thursday searching in the Yorktown Bay Area for Garnett.
A task, that Stephens said is difficult with waters 140-deep and a lake this big.
"It's 40,000 acres. It's the largest lake in the state within its borders, so it's a giant lake. There's no way that we could do the whole lake," he said.
AGFC said that a fisherman called authorities after finding the children who had life jackets on. Stephens described the boat as being a 14-foot flat bottom boat.
"So we don't really know what caused their death. There'll be an autopsy performed and we'll find out the cause of death, but at least they had those on and we were able to recover them quickly," he said.
This is the second drowning and the sixth boat accident of the year that's been investigated by Arkansas Game and Fish.
Stephens said this kind of weather, with the wind and colder temperatures, is when they encourage people to stay away from the lake.
"If you're not in a bigger boat, it's really difficult to go around the lake when it's this rough. It's obviously cold and you don't want to go into the water that's the main thing," he said.
Stephens also added that most of the boating accidents they investigate usually don't involve people wearing life jackets.
Authorities are have two patrol boats and a dive boat searching in the area as the investigation into the accident is ongoing.
We will update this article with more information as it becomes available.