Drowning

Some citizens have voiced concern to LakeExpo.com about the drowning of a man during a police chase last fall in Miller County. So we set out to review the facts of the incident.

On Nov. 5, 2016, Zachary Lewis attempted to flee from a Miller County Sheriff’s Deputy and after a pursuit, he wound up in a pond near Eldon, where he drowned while law enforcement stood on the shore. 

It all began when the Miller County Sheriff’s department responded to a 9-1-1 call reporting a suspicious vehicle stopped on a county road. Upon arrival, Miller County Deputy Burkhead observed two people standing in the road near the car. Burkhead stepped out of his car and identified himself as law enforcement at which time he says both people entered the car and drove off at a high rate of speed, apparently to elude police contact. 

Lewis, the driver, subsequently ran his car into a farm pond deep enough for the vehicle to sink out of sight. Lewis and his passenger escaped the sinking vehicle. The passenger came to the deputies and was taken into custody, then quickly released for medical transport and treatment. Lewis, on the other hand, fled into deeper water to avoid arrest. He exited the water once, according to authorities, but returned to the water when authorities’ K9 force tracked him on ground. There, according to police reports, Lewis remained in the chilly water for over an hour while refusing to follow lawful commands from police and ignoring all attempts to reason with him to come out of the water. Officers on the scene described Lewis’s actions as consistent with those of a person under the influence of drugs. Lewis finally went under the surface of the water and never resurfaced.

At the scene, Deputy Burkhead called for assistance. Several law enforcement officers from other agencies responded. These included K9 units from both Eldon and Miller County as well as Eldon Police and Missouri State Highway Patrol. Ultimately Marine Operations was also involved to recover Lewis’s body after he drowned.

Per department reports filed by the officers involved and in charge of the scene, Lewis’s final attempt to avoid arrest included going to the center of the pond and staying out of reach for over an hour. The pond is large, approximately six acres in size and as much as 30 feet deep or more, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol incident report. 

One officer’s report stated that several officers on the scene discussed potential plans that would result in Lewis being taken safely out of the water. However, no viable plan to accomplish Lewis’s rescue and arrest without placing an officer in danger was devised before Lewis drowned.

In reviewing the incident, some have asked, “What should the police have done?” Law enforcers are charged with a suspect’s well-being during an encounter with law enforcement, and, barring a deadly force scenario, should deliver the person to a court of competent jurisdiction for determination of guilt or innocence. That didn’t happen in the Nov. 5, 2016 incident. 

In this incident, however, others would say the loss of life rests on the shoulders of Lewis who knowingly and willingly attempted to elude police to his own detriment. On a pre-dawn, November morning, with temperatures in the low 60-degree range, Lewis drove into a pond where the water temperature would also have been in the low 60-degree range. He remained in the water and swam into the deeper center of a large pond, well out of reach of officers on land, according to all documentation available on the incident. 

Information on the web site of the Personal Floatation Device Manufacturers Association explains that when water temperature drops below 70 degrees, the chances of survival are dramatically reduced. The human body cools down 25 times faster in water than in air. In water near 60 degrees, the time until exhaustion and unconsciousness is between one and two hours. 

Emergency services personnel near a major recreational body of water such as Lake of the Ozarks are acutely aware of the challenges of water rescue for those not specifically trained in the techniques necessary to accomplish it.

The U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Swimming School claims that water rescue is the most difficult and dangerous training of any U.S. military training scenario. Controlling and removing a non-compliant person from deep water may be the most dangerous action any emergency services person can ever attempt, according to the USCG. In support of this claim are data from the Guard. The Coast Guard training course is 18 weeks long. During deep-water rescue training, the failure rate can be as high as 80 percent even among seasoned Coast Guard personnel. This high level of deep-water swimming is not part of typical law enforcement training.

Police officers are trained to control combative persons and place them into custody in a manner that leaves the police officer and the arrestee relatively unharmed. The chance of controlling a combative person in deep water without one or both being drowned is slim, especially when the weight of gear and inexperience are factored into the equation. These considerations were part of law enforcement’s deliberations as they strove to devise a plan to bring Lewis to shore and arrest him.

Police say Lewis failed to respond to directions or commands to exit the water when doing so could have prevented the loss of his life. This may have been the result of Lewis knowingly ingesting some substance that affected his judgment, ability to reason, or act in his own best interest: officers at the scene noted that Lewis was chanting and appeared impaired during the incident. The autopsy report has not yet been released, however, as the state medical examiner has a major backlog of cases.

In this case, an examination of training and procedures do not suggest willful neglect on the part of law enforcement. Analysis suggests that deep water exacerbated a stressful pursuit, already fraught with danger for bystanders, officers, and suspects.

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