A body of a New Jersey man was retrieved 1,500 feet underwater in California. It is deemed the most in-depth recovery ever conducted in the United States and Canada, as stated by officials.
What We Know:
- South Lake Tahoe Police Department reported that 29-year-old Ryan Normoyle rented a boat on Lake Tahoe on Aug. 10. That same evening, Normoyle’s rental boat reached ashore in Glenbrook, Nevada, but he was not on it.
- As stated by the department, Normoyle’s phone was found on his boat and had recorded him jumping off the boat into the lake. The department also mentions the recording also showed the boat floating away because Normoyle had left it on gear.
- The New York Times disclosed that the camera was able to capture Normoyle trying to get back into the boat roughly about two minutes before disappearing from the camera’s angle.
- The Washoe County Marine Unit, Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, South Lake Tahoe Fire Department, and the University of California Davis Research Team all helped in the search, thanks to the GPS data from the phone.
- On Sept. 23, the nonprofit organization Bruce’s Legacy, founded by Keith Cormican, which concentrates on underwater recovery, was called in by Normoyle’s family to aid in the investigation.
- Keith Cormican stated:
“On Friday, we were able to locate Ryan, but we couldn’t get him up; everything was too heavy. We would get him up off the bottom a little and then he’d slip away,” he said. “I lost track of all the times we had hold of him and tried to bring him up, maybe a dozen. He was finally on the ground on Sunday afternoon.”
- A body picture recognized as Normoyle’s showed up on the sonar at 1,551 feet after a few hours. Sadly, they lost hold of him and weren’t able to bring him up to surface. On Sept. 27, they were able to locate Normoyle at 1,565 feet, and after two hours, the crew hauled the body, by his hand, up to the surface.
The police department mentioned that Cormican had stated this was the most in-depth reported recovery in the United States and Canada. Beforehand, the deepest recovery in Lake Tahoe was in 2018 at a depth of 1,062 feet.
