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UTAH LAKE — Search and rescue crews located three missing jet skiers on Utah Lake Friday morning, police say.
Police found one woman and two men suffering from hypothermia but in good condition near Bird Island at the south end of Utah Lake around 7 a.m. after they had been missing for 15 hours, according to Sgt. Spencer Cannon with the Utah County Sheriff's Office.
At about 12 a.m., police received a call that a husband and wife from Provo, Angel Hernandez, 45, and Laticia Hernandez, 49, and another man, 47-year-old Guadalupe Veloz, of Nephi, went out on the lake around 4:30 p.m. Thursday and had not been heard from since 5:30 p.m., when police received a report that that one of the jet skis was disabled and the group was trying to tow it back to Utah Lake State Park, Cannon said.
Deputies checked marinas around Utah Lake, and the Saratoga Springs Fire Department looked around the three marinas in Saratoga, while the Utah Department of Public Safety sent a helicopter to canvas the area with forward-looking infrared equipment, Cannon said. The unsuccessful search was suspended at 4:45 a.m.
The search resumed at about 7 a.m. and the Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter pilot located the group of jet skiers just after 8 a.m., Cannon said. The three were waiting in 70-degree water without life jackets until they were found.
"What they did is apparently they tied the wave runners together and then tied themselves to the wave runners, so that's what saved their lives last night," Utah County Sheriff's Lt. Wally Perschon said.
Angel and Laticia Hernandez were taken to a local hospital for treatment, and Veloz was released after being treated at the scene, Cannon said.
Cannon said the average lake temperature is around 70 degrees.
"You think how miserable you can be if you have a temperature of 99 or 100 or more, well the same kind of a effect can happen in the opposite direction if you start getting cooler by just a few degrees. The body doesn't take that very well," Cannon said.
Cannon said the body cools 24 times faster in water than it does air.
"These folks are very lucky. They are lucky that it was good weather. If it was bad weather, windy at all, it could have been a different turn out," Cannon said. "We're fortunate to have the outcome that we did."
Contributing: Morgan Jacobsen, Anne Forester and Sam Penrod
