Divers to scour river for sunken truck and missing person

VERNON – Dive teams will attempt to recover a vehicle that plunged into the Shuswap River last month.

A search for the vehicle and its registered owner — a Lumby man who is declared missing — was put off mid-June because the water was too deep and too fast for the RCMP dive team to enter safely.

RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk says the water level has gone down and the dive team is tentatively scheduled to enter the water Friday.

A witness saw the truck plunge into the river near the Shuswap Falls bridge June 14 around 8 p.m. but saw no one escape the sinking vehicle.

Investigators found a license plate and traced it to the registered owner. Police spoke with the man’s family, but no one has seen him since. It’s possible divers will find his body in the submerged truck.

“We are hoping, that would make things a lot easier for everyone but we won’t know until we get there,” Molendyk says.

B.C. Hydro will reduce the water flow out of Sugar Lake to make the water calmer for the dives.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infotelnews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.