CLEVELAND -- An 18-year old man drowned in Lake Erie while swimming with his two cousins at Euclid Beach State Park.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office has identified the man as Terry Hansard, of Convoy, Ohio.
Cleveland Police received a 911 call for help around 9 p.m. Tuesday. The caller said that his cousin had been missing for about an hour.
Dive teams located Hansard about 100 yards from the shore, at the bottom of the lake, about 15 feet deep.
By the time divers reached him, he had been underwater for 2 and a half hours.
It is not clear why the two cousins took so long to call for help.
Police say a family member explained that the boys thought their cousin was jokingly hiding, but when they returned to their car, and saw that his belongings were still there, they realized he was left behind in the water.
Assistant Cleveland Fire Chief David McNeilly said that there was no debris in the water and the lake was calm, so it appears that Hansard drowned from exhaustion.
WKYC-TV