NAVARRE — As darkness fell on a cold and rainy night just north of Navarre Beach, a Ford pickup truck with a man’s body inside was retrieved from the bottom of the East River.
Rescue workers, including the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office dive team, had spent much of Monday working to pull the truck from about 16 feet of water where visibility was less than a foot.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Rich Aloy confirmed that a call of “a vehicle going into the water” had come into the county dispatch center at shortly after noon.
“Somebody saw the vehicle speeding into the water,” Aloy said.
That somebody is believed to be a witness to what had happened. Aloy said the witness was removed by deputies from the scene of the incident and questioned at another location.
The truck, a larger model Ford, went in nose first, Aloy said.
By 3:30 p.m., dive team members, working in 65 degree water and against strong currents, had located the truck and attached a cable to it.
Efforts to pull the vehicle out with a conventional-sized tow truck failed a handful of times before it was decided to bring in a bigger truck.
By the time the second truck arrived, near sunset, a crowd of about 30 onlookers had gathered on the bridge over the East River to watch the rescue effort.
Two divers had to enter the water after the sun went down to reattach cables, but the second truck had no trouble dragging it off the mucky bottom.
Only after the truck was brought up, with visibility underwater having been so poor, could Aloy confirm a death had occurred.
“We have one fatality,” he said.
The body of the victim was not immediately identified. Although suicide was mentioned as a possible finding when the cause of death is eventually determined, that could not be confirmed until the death is thoroughly investigated.
“We’re just going to say unknown circumstances at this point,” Aloy said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.
