The body of a missing boater in Irons has been recovered by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Thursday.
The person had been missing in the Sauble Lake #1 since three Wednesday afternoon.
“The call was for a person that was under water, possible kayaker,” says Lake County Undersheriff Wesley Bierling.
The sheriff’s office says they received a call around three Wednesday about a person struggling to stay afloat. By the time crews got there, the person was completely underwater.
“Witnesses’ kind of gave us a location of where they believe the person may have gone under water and once we got that information, we began our recovery and rescue efforts at that point,” says Undersheriff Bierling.
Crews were out until midnight searching, then again at 8 this morning.
“Some of the boats that we used are equipped with side scan sonar and that allows us to have picture of the bottom, so it gives us the ability to try and locate items or people without sending divers into the water right away,” says Undersheriff Bierling.
James Cross who lives nearby says he’s lived here his whole life and has never heard of an incident like this before.
“My grandpa Patterson, God rest his soul, he lived on that lake for years we used to fish it all of the time and in the winter time we’d ice fish it and this is the first time we ever had an incident like this,” says Cross.
Around one this afternoon, a body was found.
“My sympathies go out to the family,” says Cross. “And God be with [the family] in this matter.”
The Undersheriff Bierling says they are still working to identify the man:
“Our department with the medical examiner’s office will continue to investigate this incident and of course make contact with the family and try to piece together what we can of what happened and determine what took place that led to this unfortunate incident.”
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office says they are grateful for the assistance by Manistee County, Mason County, Oceana County, Irons Township and the Michigan State Police in the search and recovery of this man.
This content was originally published here.
