Three Florida hog hunters die trying to rescue dog that had fallen into an underground tank cistern in Texas and may have been overcome by toxic fumes along with a lack of oxygen.
Two male hog hunters along with a third hunter, a female along with the dog they had sought to save trapped in a cistern were all found deceased, Texas officials said.
Delvys Garcia, 37, Denise Martinez, 26, and Noel Vigil-Benitez, 45, were out hunting with a fourth person when one of their dogs fell into a cistern along a corn field, the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook release.
Investigators believe, the dog fell into a hole that led to the underground tank, and the three victims tried to save the dog, before then attempting to save each other.
Overcome by strong fumes and challenged by the integrity of the cistern structure
Officials believe one person went into the cistern to rescue the escaped dog along with two others who entered to try and rescue the first person. The fourth hunter, an unidentified man, went to his truck to call 911 and get help.
‘It’s a sad day whenever it ends like it did yesterday,’ Bastrop County Sheriff Maurice Cook told reporters during a news briefing Thursday, USA Today reported.
The first man jumped in immediately and the other man and woman took off their shoes and pieces of clothing before leaping after him, Cook told reporters.
The sheriff’s office said it responded to a report of three people trapped inside a hole in the ground around 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Upon surveying the scene they found the underground cistern partially filled with water.
Cisterns are underground reservoirs commonly used for providing water to homes in rural areas. Cook said the cistern was on private property.
The water level was far below the cistern’s small opening, officials said. Strong fumes, similar to those of a septic tank, were coming from the cistern. There were no signs of life from the dog, woman and two men in the cistern when the first responders arrived.
Unlikely deaths
Recovery efforts were hampered by the fumes, identified as hydrogen sulfide gas, and the stagnant water, the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office said. Hydrogen sulfide gas can cause irritation to the eyes and respiratory system, apnea, coma, convulsions, dizziness, headache, weakness, irritability, insomnia and stomach upset, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. First responders ventilated the cistern and also removed the water.
The recovery efforts were also complicated because the cistern was not stable, officials said. First responders tried to dig next to the structure, but abandoned the plan over concerns that breaching the side walls of the cistern would weaken it and make entry unsafe. A small drone was deployed to inspect the cistern’s integrity.
An investigator from the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office was eventually lowered into the cistern to recover the bodies on Wednesday night.
‘That group was there to save each other,’ Cook said. ‘That takes a lot of guts to jump in.’
Garcia, Martinez and Vigil-Benitez were from Florida. Their bodies were taken to the medical examiner’s office by a local funeral home. An autopsy was ordered. It was presumed that lack of oxygen in confined spaces and not necessarily toxic fumes that killed all parties, or a combination there of.
The property owner whose land the cistern existed, who was not identified. It is believed the land owner had recently died according to officials.
