Body found/recoverd at Cumberland.

[PRO V LE]

This is an amazing true life story about a group from Idaho that has developed a side scan sonar system to help in recovery of drowning victims. The person in this case was thrown from his boat the Friday before the Poker Run on Cumb. I'm not here to talk about "Go Fasters" etc. just use you're dam PFD's.
After week's of searching and dragging for the body by several agencys, When given the last known GPS #s of the accident they found his body in 6minutes. Yea I said 6 mins.
They are going to stick around and look for two more known missing in the lake. A doctor in Guffey, and another up around Wolf.
I got this info from KDFWR911 on another forum.

[Chubminnow]

Six minutes is FAST!!!

My gosh man...SIX MINUTES!!!! I had an uncle drowned in Lake Cumberland back in the sixties....it took them 14 days to find him, 14 DAY verses six minutes, amazing really.

[EJHick]

I knew of the individual who drowned. When did they find his body? Sad story.....

[Don Smith]

This is not the only time this unit has been used to recover a body. I can't direct you to it exactly, but while doing research on the Humminbird last year, I ran across a news clip. It basically explained how a body was recovered in the Mississippi River somewhere up north. The initial call to the state police stated that this guy had found a car, over 20 feet deep in MUDDY water, and gave a complete description of the car, right down to the type of hubcaps. The woman inside had been missing for several months, and had driven off the side of the road near a bridge.

If you do a little research, I am sure you can find it. Its a good read. I've only had the chance to use the unit at Lake Linville, taking a short idle about 1/4 mile down the lake and back. All I can say is once you get the concept down, its a great tool.

So much for hiding brushpiles, lol.

Don

[stratosjoe]

Discovered by accident in mere minutes with a Humminbird side scan in Danville Illinois strip pit

Katcher's mother: “The good thing is Ryan’s home.”

Coroner lists cause of death as drowning

BY BRIAN L. HUCHEL

OAKWOOD — A mother’s hope was inextinguishable for Linda Katcher Griffith, even for the more than five years her son, Ryan, was missing.

“The sad thing is now the search is over,” she said Thursday. “The good thing is Ryan’s home.”

Griffith wept several times as she held a morning press conference at the Oakwood Fire Protection District station to talk about her feelings and reactions since Tuesday’s discovery of her missing son in his truck at the bottom of Clear Pond in Kickapoo State Park.

A picture of Katcher was brought to the press conference and placed on a stand next to his mother.

Surrounded by several family members and with her husband, Bruce, standing at her side, Griffith cried as she talked about the waiting and hoping she’s done since Nov. 5, 2000 — the day Ryan was reported missing.

“It’s hard today to realize the search is over,” she said. “We’ve strived to search for Ryan for 5½ years. There was always hope that Ryan could walk through the door at some time.”

She admitted her feelings of hope almost outweighed word of this week’s initial discovery.

“Even when they told me they found a truck, in my heart I kept thinking, ‘He’s probably not in there. He’s probably not in it.’”

With Griffith’s comments also came preliminary autopsy results from Vermilion County Coroner Peggy Johnson.

The coroner listed drowning as the cause of Katcher’s death.

She said doctors found no evidence of foul play or signs of blunt-force trauma.

“There are no injuries whatsoever anywhere on Ryan’s head,” Johnson said.

Katcher went missing after friends drove him home from a party on Henning Road.

Questions about his blood alcohol level, however, will remain a mystery.

Despite better-than-expected preservation of the body in the cab of the truck, toxicology tests that check for the level of alcohol in a person’s blood cannot be done, Johnson said.

The preservation, she said, left Katcher’s body similar to mummified remains, making any chance of taking a sample for the toxicology tests impossible.

An inquest for Katcher’s case is slated for Aug. 8.

His family is working on funeral services through Sunset Funeral Home. Griffith said her daughter is flying in from California, and she expected the visitation to be Tuesday with the funeral on Wednesday.

A large portion of Griffith’s comments came as thank-yous to the community, police and local media for helping keep her son’s story alive for the last 5½ years.

“You’ve went everywhere I have to tell his story,” she said. “While I continued to live with people spreading rumors, you spread the truth and kept him alive.”

She said searches were difficult, adding, “You don’t think there’s a lot of water in Vermilion County until you set a map down and start looking, start looking for a boy in a truck.”

Sheriff Pat Hartshorn was on hand for the news conference and said his department considers the Katcher case closed.

With that designation, he hopes the rumors end, as well.

“The 5½ years it’s taken to discover Ryan has led to so many conspiracy theories and mystery novel writers and people who have bothered the family and sometime tormented them,” he said.

“But the truth of the matter is it’s a tragic accident that took Ryan’s life.”

[PRO V LE]

Just a few more facts, This is custom built equipment not Humminbird off the shelf type stuff. They even found the large stereo speaker box sitting on the bottom that was also lost overboard.
They have a remote submersibal that was used for the recovery.
When searching a lake out west for two victims, they found a total of six bodies. Some had been missing for years.
For more info go to LakeCumberland.com forums.

[Moose1am]

I use to dive to recover people who drowned in the area my fire department served. I still have friends that perform this type of work in Vanderburgh County, IN.

I wish that we had this technology 20 years ago when we were diving and risking our lives to recover loved ones for others. It's a daunting task without modern technology.

These days we even have underwater video camera that can be sent down on 100ft long Kevlar cables to show up what's on the bottom of a lake.

And one guy who's technically proficient and has access to a good shop was able to make a remote diving platform complete with a video camera. This unit has electrical server that control two or there electric motors that power and drive this home made unit. He even made some video clips of the unit in action. I could not view the video clips as the codex used was not one that I can use with Microsoft's Media Player. The same guy made a remote controlled boat with a remote controlled fishing dummy that can actually catch fish. It's pretty amazing what can be done these days.

Even when the water visibility and the currents make it hard to dive in a swollen river system these side scanning sonars units can be towed behind a boat and used to find things hugging the lake or river bottom.

It's simply amazing what these things can show to us.

And I hear tell that Fisherman like to use them for things other than recovering drowning victims.

Wear that PDF guys and remember this time of the year that water is SO soooo cold that if you get wet you can die of hypothermia in a very short time. Cold water makes even the best swimmers numb and immobile.

Take something to start a fire with you when out boating in cold winter months. And keep some spare dry cloths handy along with a heat source and some towels to dry off with and a blanket to warm you up after you get out of wet cloths and are dried off. You can become incapacitated in just a few minutes in cold water. The water will #### the life's heat out of your body in no time flat.

And one boat manufacture now makes a retractable ladder built into the back of the bass boat. These may help save a life if you fall into the water and have trouble climbing back into the boat. I wish I had a boat ladder like that on my boat.

Stay warm and dry and safe.


Regards,

Moose1am

[mhall]

Dave I read this on our other site as well. It's amazing that they have been looking for, Shane was his name, since the poker run in Sept. This Idaho group comes down and finds him in the wag of a dogs tail. They are either real lucky or their equipment is a thousand times better than anything around these parts. Not to be morbid, but when a body sinks in a hundred foot of water, it's so cold at that level the bodies don't fill with gases and float up, they just stay around the bottom almost preserved in a way. They said the father had no problems identifying his son. As tragic as this is at least the family now has closeure and can attempt to move on with their lives. People, Dave is right, wear your PFD, I'm trying to make myself do it constantly now when the boat is under power of the big motor. Also during the poker run at Cumberland in the fall, STAY OFF OF THE LAKE, OR FIND A DANG GOOD PLACE TO HIDE. Trust me it's no-where near safe on that lake on that weekend.

[Dave Stewart]

It is totally amazing that so many good folks have lost their lives because they did not put that pfd on or did not hook up their kill switch when they were running their boats. Folks if you don't want to do it for yourselves...do it for your families. The New Year is coming up and this would be a great New Year's resolution for anyone that runs a boat.

[mhall]

>It is totally amazing that so many good folks have lost their
>lives because they did not put that pfd on or did not hook up
>their kill switch when they were running their boats. Folks
>if you don't want to do it for yourselves...do it for your
>families. The New Year is coming up and this would be a great
>New Year's resolution for anyone that runs a boat.


Great thought and idea Dave, words of wisdom indeed.

[roadrunner]

Dave I finally after having it in the boat for about three years I have started to wear my inflatable so spenders. I fish Bull Shoals the last of March first of April and the last of October. With all the cold weather clothing I decided I needed to do something.

At the FnF at Dale we had a young man who works with the Coast Guard and said there might be a problem with the inflatable’s in cold weather. As Moose 1 reported in his post I carry an extra insulated coverall for anyone who falls in we can get him in dry clothes and get him to a marina. Also if you do not have a boarding latter straddle the motor and hit the tilt switch and raise the motor and crawl back into the boat. In cold weather you do not have the strength to try and pull yourself into the boat. I always put a swim ladder on my boats for this reason.

[Dave Stewart]

Good idea on the extra clothing Steve. I always have an extra set in my boat also during cold water times. A very good friend of mine got to use the stowed away coveralls a number of years back when we were fishing and he fell out of the boat into 40 degree water here. I am sure he appreciated those coveralls.

I have another good friend that had a very bad experience with the inflatable life vests. He was in a night tourney a couple of years ago and was thrown out of his boat (he was alone) while running to his first spot after blastoff. The vest did not inflate...it had a bad gas cartridge. He is not a very good swimmer and as he told me he was going down for the last time when a couple of guys in another boat pulled him from the water. Luckily they had been following his boat and saw it veer off and stop in the middle of the lake in front of them and they decided to make sure he was ok.