AUSTIN, Texas—A Texas sheriff said Thursday that three hog hunters from Florida died in an underground tank filled with sewer gas after one of them apparently tried rescuing their dog after it fell into the hole, followed by the other two jumping in to save them.
The bodies of two men and a woman, as well as the dog, were pulled from the tank in a cornfield on the rural outskirts of Austin. Bastrop County Sheriff Maurice Cook said the hole was a cistern with an opening roughly 4 feet wide and containing 8 feet of water, as well as hydrogen sulfide gas.