Search ends with body found
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DENHAM SPRINGS — Livingston Parish sheriff’s deputies and area firefighters recovered the body of a 23-year-old Denham Springs man who drowned earlier today in a wooded, isolated section of the Amite River.
The man, Ronald Sharp, of 7450 Vincent Road, Lot 60, was fishing with a friend this morning near a small beach about 200 to 300 yards north of Interstate 12 in an area accessible only by an overgrown dirt road, deputies said.
Sharp went into the water for an unknown reason, went under and never came up, said Deputy Perry Rushing, spokesperson for the parish Sheriff’s Office. The friend witnessed the man go under.
After two teams of divers searched for several hours, Sharp’s body was recovered at 6:42 p.m., snagged on a tree limb in about 9 feet of water, said Bob Gateley, assistant chief of the East Side Fire Department in Baton Rouge.
Rushing said the friend, also in his 20s, called for help between noon and 12:30 p.m. but he had to walk to the nearest I-12 exit at Range Avenue to make the call — a walk of about 20 minutes.
Against swiftly flowing current this afternoon, two Livingston Parish Protection Fire District No. 4 divers checked a brown, murky river bottom filled with logs and other debris.
As one of the divers searched at one point, he held on to a rope held by another man in a boat lashed to a large, downed and partially submerged tree.
The diver searched near the center of the river in about 10 to 12 feet of water. Later the diver searched near the west bank across from the small beach on the east bank.
Rushing said shortly after 5 p.m. that the two divers were replaced with divers from the East Side Fire because District 4 divers had tired working against the current.
Gateley said the East Side divers found Sharp’s body in the center part of the river about 10 yards south of that submerged tree.
Monday, May 12, 2008
9:50 PM