NUSAR Is Active In Summertime Recovery Work

By Andrew Gorosko

Newtown Underwater Search and Rescue, commonly known as NUSAR, was involved in two recent recovery operations involving fatalities at bodies of water in the area.

NUSAR Dive Captain James Hanrahan said NUSAR was called about 3 pm on Monday, July 21, to report to Pierrepont Lake at Seth Low Pierrepont State Park in Ridgefield to assist Wilton’s diving team in a search for a man who was reported to have fallen out of a kayak and into the lake.

The incident proved to be a fatality. The body of 54-year-old man surfaced at the lake on Tuesday afternoon as state police divers were searching the area.

Capt Hanrahan said nine NUSAR members reported to the lake on Monday, five of whom dove in searching for the man. NUSAR divers were at the scene until about 9:15 pm.

Search conditions at the shallow lake were difficult with zero-visibility water conditions amid an uneven lake bottom  which held old tree stumps, he said. Divers searched for the man’s body using their sense of touch, he said. Such a search is a slow process, he added.

Two days earlier, NUSAR received a call about 2 am on Saturday, July 19, requesting that it report to the Chimney Point area of New Milford at Candlewood Lake, where a boating accident had occurred, said NUSAR Dive Chief Mike McCarthy.

In that accident, two men died and one man was seriously injured, after two boats collided on the large lake in the early morning hours.

NUSAR divers backed up the efforts of New Milford’s dive team, said Chief McCarthy. A NUSAR diver who entered the lake located the debris field from the boating accident, he said.

Divers located the body of the second of the two men who were killed in the accident, he said. That body was found near the lake bottom in about 45 feet of water, about 500 feet offshore, Chief McCarthy said.

Also, on July 16, NUSAR was initially called, but soon released from service, in connection with efforts to find the body of a teenage boy who had drowned while swimming in Lake Waubeeka in Danbury.

As NUSAR was preparing to leave Newtown travel to Danbury for the search, it was released from service, Chief McCarthy said.