MACON, Ga. — A man training to become a firefighter died Saturday while trying to rescue three children from a lake in Georgia.
Michael Dewayne Jones, 24, was on a family outing at the lake in Macon-Bibb County when an 8-year-old girl who was playing with his sons began thrashing about in the water, according to The Macon Telegraph.
As the girl began grabbing onto one of his sons and pulling him downward into the water, Jones dashed in to save the three children.
Jones managed to get the children to shore, but as he was rescuing the last one, he slipped and sank without ever resurfacing.
“He did what any parent’s gonna do. He did what firemen are trained to do. But for whatever reason, he slipped,” Bibb County sheriff’s Lt. Paul Edwards said Sunday.
“It could’ve been a catfish hole, it could’ve been a rock. He went down and he never came back up.”
Jones was only days into a 16-week firefighter training program and had been persistently pursuing a job with the local department.