Man drowns in Lake Rabun during July 4th weekend

Crews recovered the body of a man who drowned in Lake Rabun, officials said, one of two deaths reported in Georgia’s waters over the Fourth of July weekend.

Game wardens responded around 6 p.m. Saturday to a possible drowning at the lake, Georgia Department of Natural Resources spokesman Mark McKinnon said. When officers arrived, they found 39-year-old Robert Clinkscales in about 40 to 50 feet of water near a boathouse, where his shoes and phone had been found that morning. He had been last seen around 10:45 p.m. Friday.

Just after midnight Sunday, a Rabun County search and rescue team and Towns County diver finally recovered Clinkscales’ body and turned it over to the county coroner.

Officials provided no other details about the drowning. Clinkscales, of Dillard, was the second person recovered by divers in Georgia waters over the holiday weekend.

On Friday, an Atlanta teenager was found by the Chatham County police dive team after he disappeared under the water while swimming near the Back River on Tybee Island. Laquvis McCray, 16, had been with two other people, including another teenager, in an area where Tybee Creek meets the Atlantic Ocean. Family members noticed the swimmers had begun to show signs of distress and, with the help of other beachgoers, were able to rescue two of them.

But McCray went under and did not resurface within view. His body was recovered that afternoon.

While benign conditions were reported at Tybee Island’s beaches Friday morning, the tidal conditions around the island’s southern beaches are dangerous, according to local authorities.

“Even when the water looks calm, the current can be shockingly strong — so much so that there has been one drowning per year in this area, despite the efforts of Ocean Rescue,” Tybee’s city website says.

A GoFundMe page created to help McCray’s family with funeral and burial expenses had raised more than $20,000 as of Sunday evening. According to his family, he was a loving teen who impressed on the dance floor and always kept them laughing.

“July 5th will be etched in my memory forever,” the page stated. “My grandson left his home in Atlanta yesterday with friends to visit their family. They visited the beach in Savannah, where he was swept away by the currents and taken from us.”

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