Warden Service to use underwater vehicle to search for bodies

[bluedigger]

[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0.3077em 0.3077em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Warden Service to use underwater vehicle to search for bodies[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3077em 0.3077em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Staff report
Franklin | Monday, January 14, 2013 at 3:41 pm
AUGUSTA — The Maine Warden Service will employ a special underwater vehicle to search for the bodies of three snowmobilers who are believed to have gone into the lake on the night of Dec. 30.

...

On the night of Dec. 30, five snowmobilers are believed to have gone into open water on Rangeley Lake. Dawn Newell, age 45, from Yarmouth, and her 16-year-old son from Durham both went in, but the son was able to jump to solid ice, get to shore and call 911. The mother's body was recovered the next day.

It is believed that Kenneth Henderson, 40, of China, Glen Henderson, 43, of Sabattus, and John Spencer, 41, of Litchfield, also drove their snowmobiles into the open water based on several pieces of evidence, including helmets and gloves, recovered during search efforts for Dawn Newell.

Hampered by severe cold and wind for the first few days, the Warden Service was able to use a sonar unit on Jan. 3 to search for several hours. From that search, game wardens are confident they found all three snowmobiles in approximately 70 feet of water. Poor weather and ice conditions have since prevented further use of the sonar unit.

http://www.sunjournal.com/news/franklin/2013/01/14/warden-service-use-underwater-vehicle-search-bodie/1306530?utm_source=Sun+Journal+List&utm_campaign=4deccb20d5-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

Be careful out there friends! And never cross unfamiliar waters at night when snowmobiling.

[petronius]

1. Damn, that's really sad. Glad the wardens have the ROV, though - I'd hate for divers

to go under the ice for a search, or for the families to wait all winter knowing their loved ones were out there...

[Eleanors38]

2. Folks should treat the outdoors as more than another app...

And they'll find mother nature is easier to get along with.

My deer hunts are not the stuff of Jack London or even Jack O'Connor, but darkness is a hazard. Once while slowly making my way to across a ridge at 5 a.m., I slowed as I felt a breath of warm air rising in the cold. A bear? A mountain lion? Hardly. It was the natural phenomenon of warm air rising in the morning, just a foot away and twenty feet below my boots. Such a pedestrian way to go.