** UPDATE **
Lieutenant Tony Dana with the Smith County Sheriff's Office tells CBS19 the man who died on Lake Palestine has been identified as 58-year-old Floyd Cooper. His wife, 55-year-old Barbara Cooper was hospitalized for hypothermia. We're told she is in good health now.
The couple was visiting from Lancaster, Texas.
LAKE PALESTINE (KYTX) - A tragedy on Lake Palestine when a couple's boat capsizes in the middle of the lake. Only one person made it out alive. The husband died, but the wife survived.
It was at the Villages Resort Marina on Lake Palestine, where crews took the man's body, and pulled in the boat that sank in the middle of the lake. Local fisherman rescued the woman who survived and brought her back here to the marina as well. The people who saved her say she's lucky to be alive.
When Paul Dowdy of Bullard went out on Lake Palestine to check his trot lines Monday - he didn't know he'd end up saving a life.
"When we were headed out there we noticed a tip of a boat sticking up out of the water," Dowdy says.
They sped through the rough water, to find a woman in the water screaming for help.
"We saw somebody waving one of those Styrofoam floaties at us, and we ran down there and got her, loaded up and she said her husband was in the water," Dowdy says.
By the time they found her husband, another boat of people who saw what happened pulled up to help too.
"We told them to get him in we're going to take her home."
The other person who helped dowdy pull the woman to safety, was 13-year-old Albert Calhoun.
He says, "My heart was just kind of racing."
The people who pulled the man into their boat, say he'd been in the water for a long time, floating on a child-size life jacket. They say it was obvious that they were too late.
Dowdy says, "My prayers go with the family. I'm sorry they lost a loved one. I wish we could have saved him too."
Responders say low lake levels exposing stumps and the windy conditions may be to blame for the accident.
Sgt. Gary Hinshaw with the Smith County Sheriff's Department says, "That's why you don't see a lot of boats out there today. The wind the way it is, it's just unsafe."
It's a message to other lake-goers, so they can avoid a tragedy like this.
The woman who was rescued was taken from the Villages Resort Marina to a nearby hospital.
The Smith County Sheriff's Department says she had hypothermia, but she's now talking and will be okay.
The names of the couple are not being released until family has been notified. CBS 19 has been told that both the man and woman were in their 50's and they were visitors at the villages resort.
