Chattanooga police and fire department officials at a site off Shallowford Road prepare for emergency response crews to send a boat upstream to retrieve a man's body found in South Chickamauga Creek.Map
South Chickamauga Creek
Recovery crews spent more than five hours Sunday afternoon and night working to pull a man's body from South Chickamauga Creek.
A pair of kayakers spotted the body floating downstream near 4503 Shallowford Road just before 5 p.m., police spokeswoman Sgt. Jerri Weary said.
Chattanooga police then spent the next hour trying to trace the man downstream, finally locating the body lodged on some rocks and debris at a leg of the creek near the intersection of Shallowford and Airport roads.
Police had to depend on a boat from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency sent from Chattanooga to reach the body.
The banks of the section of the creek where the body was found were covered in dense undergrowth, and there were no nearby boat ramps to quickly access the spot.
As of 9 p.m. Sunday, police had not identified the man or listed a cause of death.