HESSTON - Volunteers will continue their search today for a Huntingdon County man who is believed to have drowned near the Susquehannock Campground in the Seven Points area of Raystown Lake in Penn Township.
Volunteers on Sunday were unable to find the body of the man - Huntingdon state police have not released his identity - after they had searched from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday.
More than 110 volunteers from fire companies and various agencies and at least 30 divers from Robertsdale, Wood and Broad Top, Mount Union and Newton Wayne and East Taylor Township and from the Harrisburg area participated in the search, said Adam Miller, Huntingdon County Emergency Management Agency director.
"We have a fairly large number of divers using the latest underwater technology available. We have specialized divers who can go to great depths. In the area they are searching the water can be as deep as 120 feet, it is an extremely difficult search, it is a very big lake," Miller said. "When they have to go down to 120 feet they are also dealing with submerged trees and the temperature gets very cold. It is a tough search."
Volunteers from area fire companies, local emergency management agencies, state police, Huntingdon County Sheriff's Department, Fish and Boat Commission, Coast Guard Auxiliary, and the Army Corps of Engineers Rangers were among those involved in the operation, Miller said.
On July 29, three men, none of them wearing life jackets, drowned at Raystown Lake.
Two Franklin County men drowned in the area of the Aitch boat launch in Penn Township after they decided to get out of their boat and into the water, state police in Huntingdon.
Jerry Hugo Broman, 57, and Larry Elwood Newman, 71, both of Chambersburg, were not wearing life jackets, police said.
In a separate incident near the Snyder's Run boat launch in Juniata Township on July 29, a Ukrainian man lost his life after trying to swim between two points in the lake, police said.
Igor Khodavsky, 71, turned around to swim back halfway and went under. He was pulled from the water by family members and rushed to J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital, Huntingdon, where he was pronounced dead.
