Ohio boy drowns in Faubush area

Local News

July 15, 2008

Melodie Phelps, News Editor

Monticello — A 17-year-old Ohio boy drowned early Friday, July 11 in the Faubush area

of Wayne County.

According to Wayne County Coroner Forrest Hicks, Lucas Pfander, 17, of

Dayton, Ohio, was pronounced dead at the scene at 11:45 a.m. Friday, several

hours after the family he was vacationing with discovered that he was

missing.

Hicks said that Pfander was visiting Lake Cumberland with a friend and

the friend's parents, and they had been staying on a houseboat since Sunday,

July 6.

The teenager was last seen alive at about 4 a.m. Friday, where he was

sleeping on an air mattress on the upper deck of the houseboat.

Hicks said that at approximately 7:30 a.m. Pfander's absence was

discovered and a search began for him, both on the boat and along the

shoreline.

A member of the group contacted Conley Bottom Resort to summons help.

Kentucky Water Patrol officers Jerrod Alley and Travis Neal responded, along

with the Wayne County Rescue Squad.

Pfander's body was located after a short search in about 16 feet of

water.

Hicks said after an examination of the body was performed at the scene,

Pfander was transported to the State Medical Examiner's Office for an

autopsy on Saturday morning.

A spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife told a

Dayton newspaper that Pfander may have fallen asleep on the upper deck of

the boat and fell over, hitting his head on the lower deck.

Pfander was a senior at Chaminade-Julienne High School in Dayton, where

he was president of the National Honor Society and was involved in

volleyball, swimming and cross country.