The second set is found, at Callville Bay. The first set of remains were found in a barrel
Bushman had sought counseling to help her process her father’s passing. Her brother, she said, is not ‘doing as well as me’ when it comes to coping. Shortly after the accident, Bushman and her brother moved to California with their aunt and uncle, who raised them.įrom there, their relatives had to hire attorneys to deal with legal matters, such as custody, since Erndt had not been declared dead. ‘I was so lucky for the 15 years I got,’ she said. The family often went tubing and camping there and she remembered the many nights they cooked out and enjoyed hot dogs. ‘He always took care of us.’ĭespite Lake Mead being a place of tragedy for the family, Bushman said her favorite memories of her dad were also at the lake. Their parents were divorced, and their mother had left soon after, leaving Erndt to raise his two children alone. Looking back, she remembers her father working a lot of nights and had often taken his children to work with him. ‘I still haven’t gone swimming there.’įor years, the mother-of-four said she had a fear of swimming. ‘I still didn’t get in the water,’ Bushman told. The family had stopped by to put flowers in the bay shortly after his death, but she never was able to fully go back for years.
The Erndt family had visited Lake Mead nearly every weekend leading up to the tragic accident and it took Bushman nearly two years before she could return. Tina Bushman is pictured with her husband Drew, an attorney, and their daughters Olivia, Jane, Lucy, and Aubrey
It was where he would have wanted to be,’ she told. His daughter said the siblings felt ‘relief and closure’ after hearing the news, calling the moment ‘bittersweet.’ ‘We always kind of wondered,’ she told .īushman and her brother, now 31, of California, both provided DNA samples and were told on Tuesday that the bones matched their father. She remembered the helicopters and law enforcement trying to find her father all those years ago, and was now facing the possibility of finding his remains. ‘I think we were all a little bit shocked. The investigator also informed her that the results could take a long time due to the bones being waterlogged ‘She said it could be him, but said they needed DNA,’ Bushman told. The family lived in Las Vegas, where Erndt raised his two children alone: after his death, an aunt and uncle in California took them inĪ few months ago, a Las Vegas investigator had contacted Bushman in an attempt to inform her they might have possibly found Erndt’s remains, based on the location of the bones in relation to the original incident report. ‘We couldn’t get the boat started.’īy the time they were able to turn on the boat and started circling, they were unable to find him.ĭespite the family being pretty sure the airline mechanic had drowned, Erndt was not declared dead until Tuesday, Bushman revealed. ‘He yelled help like three times,’ Bushman told. However, they were unable to immediately start it and heard Erndt struggling. – he started yelling for the group to turn on the boat and come get him. Shortly after he jumped into Lake Mead – the largest reservoir in the U.S. ‘I remember he took off his shirt and the waves were big,’ she said. She said the 42-year-old waded out into the water for a midnight swim with his children Tommy and Tina, then 11 and 15, respectively, and friends on August 8, 2002. The coroner said her office was continuing work to identify the man whose body was found May 1 in a rusted barrel in the Hemenway Harbor area The first body was discovered in a barrel (pictured).
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