A 21-year-old man drowned shortly after receiving his baptism in a Texas lake while attempting to save a teenage girl from his church. Lincer Lopez was at the lake with a church group from Garland, near Dallas. During this trip, he was baptised in the lake along with some other church members. An hour later, when a 16-year-old girl named Genesis Delgado, who was swimming with the group, started to drown, Lincer sprang into action to rescue her.
Genesis told WFAA that after several of her congregants had been baptised, she moved to the shallow end of the lake and began to walk in, taking a couple of steps, not realising how deep it would get before reaching a drop-off. She struggled to stay above water until she began sinking.
Local police said a passing boater managed to pull her from the water and performed CPR before she was taken for medical treatment. Lincer, who was also pulled out of the water, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the publication reported.
His uncle, Jacobo Lopez, told WFAA that Lincer worked as a construction worker to support his family in Mexico, being the eldest of seven siblings. “He was a hero. He didn’t think twice about rescuing someone else,” Jacobo said. Speaking with the news outlet in Spanish, Jacobo added, “He didn’t think about the risk that he could die, and he did risk his life to save somebody else’s.” Jacobo also mentioned how Lincer was so excited about his baptism that he couldn’t sleep the night before the tragic event.
“I thank you, Lincer, for everything you tried to do, and I hope I can see you again soon. I believe I will,” Genesis said on WFAA, adding that she wants his family to know that she was sorry for his loss and that she “really did love him a lot.” The teen also expressed her gratitude to the rescuer, Jacob Bell, and said she hopes to meet him.
In an interview with PEOPLE, Bell said he and his friend Craig McDonald were fishing that morning. Bell heard some screaming after dropping McDonald off at the boat ramp. By the time he reached shore and police began helping the girl, Bell overheard a group talking in Spanish about someone else still being in the water. Bell said that he dove many times towards the drowning site before finding Lincer 12 feet below the surface. He then hauled him to where the cops were.
A GoFundMe page was set up for Lincer’s loved ones to help raise money to bring his remains back home to Chiapas, Mexico.
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