This is an absolutely heartbreaking scene all around.
According to AP News, a Texas sheriff announced yesterday that three hog hunters from Florida passed away in an underground tank that was filled with sewer gas after one of them tried to rescue their dog after it fell into a hole in the outskirts of Austin, Texas in Bastrop County.
The other two went in after them.
The bodies included two men and a woman, along with the dog, and were all pulled from the tank in a cornfield.
Bastrop County Sheriff Maurice Cook said that the hole was a cistern with an opening around four feet wide and contained roughly eight feet of water, along with hydrogen sulfide gas.
Cook said it all started on Wednesday in the middle of the night, when one of the men went down in the cistern to rescue the dog, which was described as a bloodhound. Clothing and boots belonging to the two others were found near the hole.
Cook said:
“There was no cover. This was just an open hole in the middle of a cornfield.”
The three victims were identified as 37-year-old Delvys Garcia, 26-year-old Denise Martinez, and 45-year-old Noel Vigil-Benitez, all from Florida.
Cook noted that the cistern had a “high level” of hydrogen sulfide, adding that stagnating water and the decay of other animals could create deadly levels.
There was a fourth person in the hunting party, who was from Texas, who did not go in the hole.
The hunter said that the dog escaped from their truck and tracked it in the hole using a device attached to the dog’s collar.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of these victims.
