According to fire officials the search for the missing man continues to get harder due to weather conditions. -- NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
Medicine Hat News
After three unsuccessful dive attempts by rescue crews Saturday, the search for a man who went missing in the South Saskatchewan River late Wednesday continues to get harder for emergency officials.
“This really is just a very difficult search,” said Medicine Hat Fire deputy chief Lance Purcell. “The lake and weather conditions are not making it easier.”
On top of the river moving at just under 600 cubic metres per second, there’s a number of other issues negatively impacting the search says Purcell.
“The river has come up some more and the volume has increased in the last little while,” he said. “All of that is impacting the search, on top of more debris in the water. It is getting tougher for us.”
Purcell says the teams cannot say what exactly is causing all of the issues.
“There’s lot of issues up stream, so we can’t say for sure what causing the tougher conditions. This river is fed from multiple sources, so there’s a lot of possibilities,” said Purcell.
Purcell says the Saturday night search team did not receive any promising hits that would warrant another dive attempt by Medicine Hat Fire workers.
Deputy chief Brian Webster says the teams are back on the water today, searching the same area they did Saturday, which is roughly 11 kilometres up stream.
“Search teams are back in the water, as are the firefighters and the civilian boat,” said Webster. “We are continuing to look in the same area as yesterday and that’s all there is to say about today so far.”
