Crews Searching For Missing Tuber In Bucks County
By Kelly Hessedal
TINICUM TWP. (CBS) – Search crews in Tinicum Township, Bucks County were in the Delaware River Saturday evening searching for a missing man.
Authorities say the 30-year-old victim slipped under water and disappeared in the area of Bucks County River Country, which is a water sports recreation center.
Crews searched from the air and on the ground for about three-and-a-half hours before calling off the search for the night.
According to authorities, the missing tuber was with a group of people when he somehow came off his tube and went underwater. A friend reportedly jumped in the water to try to save him but was unsuccessful.
"We were having a great day together and everything flipped upside down," one of the missing tuber's friends said. "He was an athletic guy, played ball, knew how to swim and we had done six-and-a-half miles of a trip together and we were on the last leg."
This happened around 4:45 p.m. about 10 feet from the shore.
"They said 'look, a buddy of ours went down and didn't come up'," said Daniel Breen, who is with the Bucks County River Country.
Breen says the river was especially high Saturday:
"It's crazy to be out there in 10 or 11 feet of water. The river is going at least twice as fast as normal."
Dive teams from a number of different agencies combed the water for hours.
"There were a few hits on the sonar which is why some of the divers stayed out there. We've marked those areas," Scott Fleischer with the Point Pleasant Fire Department said.
At about 8:30 p.m. crews called out of the search for the night.
"Visibility is very low, almost down to zero," Fleischer said. He adds that this area has seen a number of drownings this summer.
The name of the missing man has not been released. The search will resume Sunday morning.
