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Fatal bridge dive wasn't for thrills By MARK FREEMAN TRAIL - Brian "Petey" Nisbet stood with friends on the Peyton Bridge catwalk and peered into the Lost Creek Lake waters below before friends said he made a most uncharacteristic, and deadly, decision. Nisbet laid his shoes and wallet on the catwalk floor, then steamed by his friends to make a 200-foot plunge into the water. "He acted like he thought he was going to make it through the jump," said friend Jay Miles, of Medford. But the 31-year-old Medford drywaller drowned after hitting the water in an ill-fated leap off a bridge that has drawn its share of thrill-seekers in the lake's 25-year history. "We think it was a thrill jump - something to do," said Sgt. Ken Curtis, of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. But Nisbet's friends said Monday he was not your everyday daredevil and believe the short and affable Nisbet simply misjudged the distance between the bridge and the water. "He was no thrill-seeker," Miles said. "We're all so confused, so hurt because we don't know why he did it and what was going through his mind." Jackson County Search and Rescue crews on Monday suspended their search for Nisbet, whose body was thought to be trapped among snags and debris in 84 feet of murky, algae-laden lake water. With visibility too poor for divers and the lake bed too full of snags to drag a special underwater search camera, rescue crews conducted surface searches and checked the area with SONAR equipment but were unable to find the body. Searchers suspect that Nisbet is the latest of at least four drowning victims whose bodies have not been recovered from Lost Creek Lake in the past 21 years. "I, personally, believe he's trapped in the debris and won't be coming out," said Deputy Wally Ramsay, of the sheriff's marine patrol. Frank Joseph Wisnovsky, the 44-year-old owner of Valley View Vineyard, drowned in July 1980 while installing cables to a boat dock at what is now Lost Creek Lake Marina. Dive teams searched several days for Wisnovsky before giving up. Fred Raymond Jennings, 51, of Medford, died June 23, 1998, when he swam after his fishing boat that drifted away from a floating rest room. Jennings had swum about 200 yards in water 150 to 250 feet deep before disappearing. Theodore Calouri, of Williams, jumped to his death on Aug. 26, 1999, a year after he and two friends jumped from the bridge and survived, Curtis said. If his body does not surface soon, Nisbet will join Wisnovsky, Jennings and Calouri in a set of files that Curtis said he carries in his briefcase for quick reference if ever a body abruptly surfaces at Lost Creek Lake. Nisbet was likely traveling at more than 100 mph when his 200-foot plunge from the bridge to the lake ended, Curtis said. "When you hit that water, it's like hitting concrete," Curtis said. "I'm sure people have successfully jumped at that height, but if you're just off-angle, you can break a lot of bones." Miles said jumping off the bridge is common, and that several of his friends have done it with few or no injuries. Nisbet had never expressed interest in bridge-jumping before, said friend Gabe Hoover. "(Police) make him look like a death-seeker, but he wasn't," Hoover said. But he was one of several people returning from a swim in the Mill Creek Falls area when they stopped to look at the lake from the bridge catwalk. Friend Miranda Miles spent much of Monday walking the bridge looking for her friend's body. She said the lake looks deceptively close from there, and she wondered Monday why there are no warnings from the roadway or the catwalk that jumping from it could be deadly. "There need to be signs there, or people are going to keep dying off this bridge," she said. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.