GAINESVILLE, Ga. -- Alex Gillette described his friend Madeline Sinagra of Atlanta as "a firecracker; a bottle rocket that hadn't left the bottle."
Gillette talked to 11Alive News about Sinagra, 31, Wednesday morning while traveling in North Carolina - days after Sinagra went missing on Lake Lanier. Gillette said he saw her just before she went to Lake Lanier last weekend.
"She had just left my house to get ready to go to the lake," Gillette said.
According to the Hall County Sheriff's Office, Sinagra went into the water, off of a sailboat, on Sunday afternoon and did not resurface. Department of Natural Resources crews went back on the lake to search for her on Wednesday.
Authorities said the water in the area where she disappeared ranges from 65 to 100 feet in depth. There are also a lot of trees on the bottom at that point, making the search even more difficult.
She’d been healing slowly from a broken collar bone, according to Gillette, and he said Sinagra had gotten into trouble trying to swim in Lake Lanier the week before, but for some reason, he said, Madeline felt confident enough to jump into the lake again on Sunday from a sailboat, but couldn’t make it back.
“She thought her collar bone was good enough to be able to swim," Gillette said.
Investigators say the man who was with her on the boat jumped in to try to rescue her, but was unable to find her after she went under.
She was a woman who friends say was an explosive, loving force in their lives.
Gillette speaks of Madeline Sinagra as a free spirit, a long-time bartender in Atlanta’s restaurant industry, searching for her place and peace in life, a woman who needed her friends, and needed being their friend.
“No matter what, she was always there for her friends, she’d do whatever she could to take care of her friends,” Gillette said.
“And that smile was just absolutely magnetic. Probably the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen in my life.”
Gillette said she was looking forward to bigger things in life.
"She had plans," he said, talking about her life ahead. "Big plans. She wanted to be a veterinarian and she wanted to do things for children."
Other friends of Sinagra talked about her energetic and exuberant spirit.
"She was so full of life and had an extremely big heart and loved her friends and family so much," said Kimmie Hart, a friend of Sinagra.
The Hall County Sheriff's Office and Fire Department has divers on the scene and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is helping with the search.
