Man who drowned in Georgia's Lake Lanier possibly electrocuted

A 24-year-old died Friday after he was suspected of being electrocuted jumping into Lake Lanier from his family’s dock. The massive reservoir in northern Georgia has a macabre history, and there have been calls in recent months for it to be cleaned up for safety reasons.

Just moments after jumping into the water on Thursday afternoon, Thomas Milner screamed for help, according to Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Stacie Miller.

A family friend tried to use a ladder to rescue Milner but couldn’t, the spokeswoman said in a statement. Then, neighbors took a boat into the water, and one man dived in to save Milner. But after feeling a “burning sensation that he recognized as an electric shock,” the spokeswoman added, the neighbor swam to shore to turn off the power box that supplied electricity to the dock to operate the boat lift. The sheriff’s office said the death remains under investigation.

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Lake Lanier has a deadly reputation in Georgia, and myths about its being haunted have long circulated. In May, an online petition signed by 5,000 people sought to “drain, clean, and restore” the lake for safety reasons. Fashion stylist Tameka Foster, ex-wife of R&B singer Usher, started the petition; her son died on the lake 11 years ago when a watercraft struck him as he floated in an inner tube.

Between 1994 and 2022 at Georgia’s most famous manmade lake, at least 76 people died in boating incidents, and there were 140 drowning deaths, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. But the lake’s popularity does not necessarily explain the high number of fatalities. Lake Allatoona, 40 miles west of Lanier, has a similar number of visitors each year but one-third of the deaths, according to the Oxford American.

In Milner’s case, the young man’s neighbor told the sheriff’s office that he re-entered the water after cutting off the power and managed to pull Milner onto the dock. Milner was given CPR by his uncle until medics arrived to take him to Northside Forsyth Hospital, but he succumbed to his injuries the next day.

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Electric-shock drowning is not unheard of in the lake. In 2019, the Lakeside on Lanier newspaper reported that four out of 10 private docks had electrical current bleeding into the water. “Electric Shock Drowning is being called a silent killer of recreational boaters, dock owners, and people who enjoy being around the water,” reported the paper.

Experts said that many people who are killed by electrical current in water die of drowning, not electrocution. Rather than jumping into the water, bystanders should try to toss something buoyant in, lead the victims away from the source of electricity and turn off the power.

Officially named Lake Sidney Lanier, the 38,000-acre recreational body of water an hour’s drive northeast of Atlanta provides drinking water for about 5 million people. The Buford Dam at the lake’s southern end generates hydroelectric power for the metro Atlanta area.

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The Army Corps of Engineers constructed Lake Lanier in the 1950s, according to the Atlanta History Center. There is a longstanding myth that the body of water was created to flood a predominantly Black town in Forsyth named Oscarville, but the Atlanta History Center contends that the characterization of Oscarville as an all-Black town obliterated by floodwaters isn’t accurate. The center says that although there was an exodus of Black residents from Oscarville and other areas of Forsyth County at the start of the 20th century, Oscarville was a predominately White town.

Additionally, Oscarville was emptied before the Industrial Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce met in April 1947 to move forward with building the Buford Dam, which would pool water to form the lake.

One explanation for the lake’s large body count could be the treacherous underwater traps.

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“When the lake was constructed, they didn’t remove every single structure from the area before flooding it,” Dee Gillespie, a professor of U.S. history at the University of North Georgia, told The Washington Post. “That means if you are swimming, you are more likely to get caught up in something.”

When the lake was formed, the city of Atlanta found it too expensive to demolish the infrastructure at the bottom of Lake Lanier. Today, “rooftops, home foundations, cemeteries, and the Gainesville Speedway” lie beneath the lake, according to the Oxford American.

These structures make the lake dangerous for recreational activities and make the recovery of bodies difficult.

Gillespie said that despite being a scholar of the lake, she can’t explain why it gets so much attention for being haunted.

“The lake was constructed to manage water supply and navigation downstream,” she said. “Over time, it became a recreation lake.”

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