Two friends have been left traumatised after frantically trying to save a man who disappeared into a lake while lying on an airbed.
Ryan Hornby, 22, and George Lee, 21 say the man looked them "dead in the eye" and shouted for help as he struggled to stay above water on the hottest day of the year.
The pair witnessed the airbed drift "further and further" into the middle of the lake.
Then, the man leapt into the water, and began swimming back, after noticing how far out he was.
Yet he began to struggle, and George and Ryan looked on helplessly.
Speaking to LeicestershireLive, Ryan said: “We were just at the edge the shallow bit of the lake trying to seeing how cold it was. There was another group near us and one of them got on the airbed on the water and just drifted off.
“He went under and came back up and was shouting for help."
The friends tried to get out into the lake themselves to help him, but were unable to wade through the mud and realised there was nothing else they could do.
“He looked at us dead in the eye and shouted for help,” Ryan said.
But moments later the man could no longer be seen.
“He just disappeared under the water,” George said. The 21-year-old said they helped as much as they could.
“There was not much we could do - it was horrible because he had been shouting but nobody could do anything about it,” she added. “We tried to go further but we didn’t know how deep it was going to get.”
The horror took place in Mammoth Lake in Watermead Park in Leicester on Friday, June 17
The young men alerted emergency services and search and rescue teams arrived - Leicestershire Police and firefighters have been searching the area ever since.
In an update on Sunday night, the force said it was still very much treating the operation as a missing person inquiry.
“He just disappeared under the water,” George said, adding that they helped as much as they could.
“There was not much we could do - it was horrible because he had been shouting but nobody could do anything about it,” she added.
“We tried to go further but we didn’t know how deep it was going to get.”
Ryan said they tried to search for the man, but he was "nowhere to be seen". "It was horrible," he added. "We haven’t been able to get away from it, we’re traumatised. I have had to take a few days off work.”
Police continued to search for the man at Watermead Park today, deploying search and rescue boats and drones. Mammoth Lake is the biggest body of water in the park and used to be part of a quarry.
Detective Superintendent Michelle Keen said on Sunday: “We’re treating this as a missing person enquiry and we are continuing to search both the lake and Watermead Park itself to try and locate the man. Unfortunately to date, a co-ordinated search involving multiple agencies – as well as a specialist police search advisor (POLSA) – has not led to him being located.
"We are now working closely with specialists to identify the next steps to locate the missing male. We have officers in contact with the family of the male and supporting them at this distressing time.
“While a number of people who were in Watermead Park have been spoken to, I’d still ask anyone who was in the area on Friday evening but has not yet spoken to police to do so.”
Anyone who was in the park at the time and has information relevant to the inquiry is asked to contact Leicestershire Police as a matter of urgency by telephoning 101 and quoting incident 612 of June 17.
