By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News

Travis County Sheriff’s Office has been searching for a 19-year-old man who fell off a boat on Lake Travis on Monday night. 

Around 8:20 p.m. on Oct. 14, the man went into Lake Travis when he was with a group of his friends heading back to shore from Devil’s Cove, which is located on the north side of Lake Travis near Jonestown, said Kristen Dark, Travis County Sheriff’s spokesperson.

“Somewhere in transit, the missing (man) fell off of that vessel,” Dark said. 

It was dark when it happened but his friends looked for him in the water at the same time they called 9-1-1.

“EMS, fire, StarFlight all responded. They were unsuccessful in the rescue attempts and went into recovery mode (Monday) evening,” Dark said.

Travis County Sheriff’s Office has been working diligently this week with drop cams, cameras that are dropped in the water to scope out the situation. The Texas Game Warden is using a side-scan sonar and the Lower Colorado River Authority has also been using search tools. Between four and six boats have been used so far in the search.

“We are dealing with a very stressful situation,” Dark said. 

Several witnesses on the boat including the driver have shared where they think they saw him last so that makes it a very large area to search.

The Lake Travis waters being searched are from 40 feet to 120 feet deep. 

TCSO could not dive in the search initially because the area was too large.   

“We have a couple of fixed points that witnesses have told us they believe is the last point they saw him, we’re working off of those and building a grid and we’ll search that grid,” Dark said.

“Travis County Sheriff’s can dive to 100 feet and that is if we get a target that we can look at,” she added. 

There is also an underwater orchard in the search area with full grown trees, which makes the situation more difficult, Dark said. 

“We are very, very hopeful that we’re going to find him,” Dark said. “We’re going to keep looking until we’ve exhausted every avenue we have.”