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Search teams locate body of capsized boater

Search teams have located the body of a missing Alberta fisherman whose boat capsized on the Kitimat River July 7.
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Terrace SAR Facebook photo

Search teams have located the body of a missing Alberta fisherman whose boat capsized on the Kitimat River July 7.

On July 11 Kitimat RCMP, Kitimat Search and Rescue and Terrace Swift Water Rescue located the man who was deceased at the scene.

The BC Coroners Service has taken over the investigation.

According to Kitimat Ground Search and Rescue manager Manny Arruda, searchers were dispatched just before 12:30 p.m July 7 when four occupants on three different boats had capsized on the Kitimat River.

Arruda said it appears that the boaters hit one of two log jams just a kilometre down the river from the Eighteen Mile Bridge.

“It goes right across the whole river. It’s totally unsafe for anybody to be launching from that Upper Kitimat Bridge,” said Arruda.

“There’s no way of getting around the log jams. You come around the corner and it’s right there.”

The three other boaters made it safely to shore.

Six Kitimat searchers and eight Terrace swift water rescue team members, as well as Kitimat fire crews and RCMP, searched the river until 9 p.m. Saturday but neither they or helicopter searches found any sign of the man until the following weekend.

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The Kitimat River (Gerry Leibel photo)