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Staff Photo by Lesley Onstott Marion County Wildlife Officers continue to search for the bodies of the boaters near the Nickajack Dam with the use of cameras Friday. One of the officers, Russell Vandergriff, said the men had two hours to search with the use of the cameras.
Searchers found a man's body Friday evening at the Nickajack Dam in Marion County, almost a week after three boaters from Dalton, Ga., went missing.
The body was sent to Grandview Medical Center in Jasper, Tenn., according to Steve Lamb, director of Marion County Emergency Medical Services.
Mr. Lamb wouldn't say whether the body was that of one of the boaters, but "based on the location, there's a good possibility."
The body was found about 6 p.m. CST in the "general vicinity" of where the boat disappeared last Saturday, Mr. Lamb said.
Identification must be made by the Marion County medical examiner, he said.
On Thursday, searchers also found what could be human remains in the river about three miles downstream from the dam, Mr. Lamb said. Those remains also have been turned over to the Marion County medical examiner, he said.
On Friday, Marion County officials used an underwater camera and sonar units to search for the bodies.
Russell Vandergriff, a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officer for Marion County and lead investigator on the case, said the Tennessee Valley Authority closed the flood gates so rescue workers can use cameras and sonar equipment to locate objects in the water.
Searchers have found three life jackets and pieces of the boat as far as eight miles downstream from the site of the accident, Officer Vandergriff said.
Officer Vandergriff said a few objects of interest were located with a sonar unit when the floodgates were closed on Sunday.
He said personnel will continue the search over the weekend.
"After that we will scale back to once a week (having) someone come out and run the river," he said.
A group of five people from Dalton were fishing below the dam on the Tennessee River at about 7 p.m. CST last Saturday when their boat was pulled into a flood gate, said Joey Wray, an assistant supervisor with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
Brothers Hildebrando Hureta-Hernadez, 14, and Norberto Hureta-Hernadez, 26, were found Saturday night about two miles downstream with no apparent injuries, he said.
Angel Ocampo, 48, driver of the boat, is among the missing. The names of the other two missing boaters have not yet been released to the public.
THE STORY SO FAR
A group of five people from Dalton, Ga., were fishing under the dam on the Tennessee River at about 7 p.m. last Saturday when their boat was pulled into a flood gate. Two brothers were rescued, but the boat's driver and two other men remain missing.
Adam Crisp covers education issues for the Times Free Press. He joined the paper's staff in 2007 and initially covered crime, public safety, courts and general assignment topics. Prior to Chattanooga, Crisp was a crime reporter at the Savannah Morning News and has been a reporter and editor at community newspapers in southeast Georgia. In college, he led his student paper to a first-place general excellence award from the Georgia College Press Association. He earned ...
Joan Garrett has been a staff writer for the Times Free Press since August 2007. Before becoming a general assignment writer for the paper, she wrote about business, higher education and the court systems. She grew up the oldest of five sisters near Birmingham, Ala., and graduated with a master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama. Before landing her first full-time job as a reporter at the Times Free Press, she ...
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