Body Of Missing Swimmer Recovered From Frozen Wareham Pond

WAREHAM (CBS) – Dive teams were able to recover the body of a missing swimmer in an icy pond in Wareham around 12:30 p.m. Monday. The recovery efforts took hours.

Assistant Wareham Fire Chief John Kelley said providing closure for the family of the man was important. "They were present during that timeframe while all the agencies worked hard at the task at hand to make the recovery," he said.

His name has not been made public, but authorities said he is from the area.

First responders from several towns were called to the small reservoir near a cranberry bog off County Road around 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

Initially, authorities said the middle-aged man had fallen through the ice. On Monday, they told reporters he actually went into the frigid water willingly to go for a swim, something they said he does regularly.

When his friends didn't see him come out, they called 911. Rescuers were there in seven minutes but weren't able to find him.

Police are still investigating why the man was unable to get out of the water. There is no sign of foul play.

Multiple divers went in and chainsaws were used to cut through the ice, which was five inches thick in some spots, as temperatures dropped to about 10 degrees. The search ended around midnight and then resumed Monday at 8 a.m.

"We've had to cut through ice. The divers who've gone in the water, they have had issues with visibility, trees, stumps. It's basically it's a pond they use to flood cranberry bogs, so it's not like a pond someone would go swimming in normally," assistant fire chief Patrick Haskell told WBZ-TV.

Massachusetts State Police are using a sonar device and state environmental police have an underwater robot with a camera on it in their search of the pond, which is ten feet deep in some spots.

No other information is available at this point in the investigation.