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Last updated on Sunday, May 27, 2012
(BLOOMINGTON) - One man died and three other men were detained by conservation officers in a drowning at Fairfax State Recreation Area early Saturday evening.
The victim has been identified as Matthew Hosier, 29, from Anderson. Indiana Conservation Officers were called to the scene at 6:20 p.m. on Saturday. Details regarding the death are still under investigation.
Indiana Conservation Officer Scott Johnson says further details will be released at 3 p.m. today.
Monroe County coroner Nicole Meyer confirmed that Hosier drowned and that Hosier died Saturday on what was his 29th birthday.
Angie Goldman, public information officer with the Department of Natural Resources, says three other men were detained by conservation officers at the scene of the drowning behind the Fourwinds Resort and Marina.
"Everything is under investigation," Goldman said. "Many of the individuals in the drowning were uncooperative, so they were transported."
Abby Tonsing, of the Herald-Times reports, Steve Megremis, 46, of Bloomington, said that the four men appeared to be "play fighting" on the boat slip before one of the men went into the water and did not resurface. He said that the men had been pushing, shoving and knocking each other into the water.
"Even when it got more physical and they were joking less, it still didn't seem there was intent to fight," he said.
Megremis said that as he walked down the pier, watching the shoving match, a woman said to him, "Boys will be boys."
Less than two minutes later, Megremis said he heard the woman screaming and saw the men dive into looking for the one who went under.
Megremis said he dove into the water to find the man, as did the other members of the man's group, and a few others nearby. He estimated six or seven people searched for the man in the water. Marina staff brought out goggles for divers to use in their search.
Megremis estimated the man was in the water for more than 15 minutes. When members of the Monroe County Dive Team arrived, Megremis estimated it took another five minutes to recover the man.
People had been diving down in the exact spot where the man had gone into the water. It was the same spot that emergency dive team members recovered the man, Megremis said.
Conservation officers questioned three men. One handcuffed man sat on a picnic table underneath a tree with conservation officers. He had a scrape on his forehead and demanded that officers take him to see a physician.
A second man sat handcuffed in a DNR truck, before it drove away from the resort.
A third man, on a boat, was with conservation officers at the end of the pier for more than an hour. He was later wearing handcuffs and was walked up the pier to land by one officer holding his right arm.
On Friday, the Fourwinds Resort and Marina celebrated a grand reopening of the hotel's 118 renovated and modernized rooms, refurbished swimming pool with a retractable roof, landscaped lawns and remade tumbling waterfall.
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