Emergency crews have recovered a body from Sikome Lake and it is believed to be that of the 29-year-old man who went missing on Monday.
Ali Shaikh was in a boat in the middle of the lake with three other adults and two children when he went overboard and failed to resurface.
Divers and search crews have been in the water for the past two days searching for him but were hampered by visibility issues.
“Certainly the visibility in the water was a challenge. Because they circulate the water here it takes a long time for it to settle and then we were lucky last night that there was no wind so the water was able to settle a lot better and it doesn’t get churned up, so that was a challenge, and the fact that there’s weeds, grass, probably 18 inches tall in some places on the bottom so literally you’re just feeling by hand,” said Randy Yeats, CFD District Chief.
Boats were back out on the water on Wednesday morning with sonar equipment and with assistance from the police helicopter located something under the surface at about 11:00 a.m.
“We continued with our water search and with our sonar and we called in aerial assist from HAWKS and they were able to do a couple of turns around the lake and they did identify a location in the lake, pinpointed by the searchers in the boat as well and immediately following that we called the fire department divers back, to come back in and EMS and the Medical Examiner and we did take a body from the lake,” said Jill Sawyer, Alberta Parks.
Sikome Lake will remain closed to the public for the time being and the water will not be drained.
“Sikome Lake is going to be closed until further notice. Our goal will be to reopen it before the end of the summer, certainly we’ll have to test the water quality as we do all the time, and we’ll be advising the public on when Sikome will be open again,” said Sawyer.
Alberta Parks says an environmental assessment will be done before the lake reopens and that they will also be reviewing safety procedures.
The lake closes after the Labour Day long weekend every year and officials say an environmental assessment is also done at that time to ensure it is safe to drain the water into the Bow River.
