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Dive teams recover bodies of two men

10:12 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 22, 2008

By MARI ALVAREZ
KVUE News

Dive teams pulled the bodies of those two men from Lake Travis today.

Video
KVUE's Mari Alvarez reports
10/19/2008
Local/State Videos

Deputies say the men were cliff-diving when they went under Saturday afternoon.

And just a day later, KVUE News found others doing the same thing, captured on home video most parents probably wouldn't care to see: teenage boys jumping almost 50 feet into Lake Travis.

A sign at the entrance of Pace Bend Park discourages cliff jumping.

But Jarrod Allison and his friends say they come out and jump almost anytime the weather's right.

Allison says often times, you'll find a crowd at this cliff off Grisham trail.

Saturday afternoon, the fun here turned somber.

Travis County Sheriff Deputies were called out after three men in their 20s jumped into the lake, but only one came up.

Sunday morning a dive team recovered the two bodies.

“It's not uncommon for a body to sink to the bottom. There's a lot of different factors involved in this particular incident which I’m sure will unravel as we investigate more,” said Captain Art Cárdenas with the Travis County Sheriff’s Department.

Cardenas says at this point, there is no indication that alcohol was involved.

However, several witnesses are still being questioned, and several different stories as to what happened, have been told.

Either way, it's a deadly reminder of how dangerous these waters can be.

“We would encourage people, recreational swimmers, everyone who uses the park to be mindful of that whether they're driving, recreating in the water or doing cliff diving, anything of that nature,” said Cárdenas.

“It really doesn't change my perspective very much because we honestly know what we're doing, how to land, so it really doesn't change it very much,” said Allison.

Cliff jumping is not illegal, but again authorities strongly discourage it, especially in murky waters like what you'll find at Pace Bend Park.

It’s because of that poor visibility that dive teams had to wait until this morning to recover the missing bodies.

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