News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

By LeRae Haynes 

In an exclusive interview, Constable Craig Douglass from the RCMP North District, said that the RCMP case of the missing diver from 150 Mile House is still open and still under investigation. He said that the individual is listed as ‘missing’ and will be listed as such until he is found. 

Constable Douglass said that the dive team did not specifically report anything too difficult about the area they searched, and added that they went down to their maximum of 130 feet and covered the area three times.   

The Coast Guard was called in as a matter of routine to search for the missing diver. Coast Guard Media Liaison Dan Bate said that at the time of the incident, at around 7pm on Sunday, three Zodiacs from the boat that the diver went missing from searched the area. "They searched for about three hours on their own before contacting the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Esquimalt just before 10:30 pm," he explained. "The Coast Guard life boat 'Cape St. James' from  Bella Bella and the nearby Canadain Coast Guard ship 'Gordon Reid' were tasked to search for the misisng man."   

He said that when a Mayday call comes in to the Coast Guard, it goes to the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, and that they have a look at the area and access the closest resources. The Coast Guard and the RCMP would have been  ' tasked, '  as well as other available vessels in the area. 

"At the Rescue Centre they pull all the information together, such as weather conditions, water conditions and tide levels. The Centre does an analysis, basically a search area on a map, to determine what is the best effort to find the individual," he continued. "The searchers look at things like whether he was wearing a dive tank and how long it would take to deplete, and if he got out of the water, where he would most likely be."  

He said that it took about an hour and a half for the Coast Guard to travel the 50 miles from Bella Bella to Kwatna Bay where the man went missing. " Along with the RCMP, they  started searching and were joined in two hours by the Coast Guard ship. They searched throughout the night  and into the following day. The Coast Guard searchers used night-vision goggles, did extensive shoreline searches, and wrapped up the search at approximately 8:30 on Monday," he explained. "It was a lengthy search."   

In regards to the timeline the law uses to declare a missing and presumed drowned person, Shane DeMeyer, Regional Coroner in Prince George said that there are two distinct areas of consideration when someone is missing: Missing, or Missing and Presumed Dead. 

He explained that in the second case, they have to have some sort of evidence to make them believe that the person is, indeed, dead. “If the Coroner’s office pronounces someone dead, they are---in the eyes of the law. If that person should ever return, the paper work and logistical nightmares are severe,” he said.   

Mr. DeMeyer said that he believes, to the best of his knowledge,  that BC is the only province where the Coroner's office has the authority to pronounce someone deceased , and that in all other provinces, it must be a court ruling. 

“In the case of a missing person, a GPS map is created of where the person went missing, DNA is collected from his home, with the help of his family, so that if a body turns up even 20 years later, there is a way to match and identify the person, or rule him/her out as the case may be,” he continued. “There is no set timeline for how long a person can be considered missing.”

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