Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office dive team recovers stolen SUV from Yellow River
Two members of the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office dive team recovered a stolen SUV from the chilly waters of the Yellow River on Sunday.
The Chevrolet Tahoe was reported stolen out of Crestview and the sheriff's office was alerted by Eglin Air Force Base security forces that someone had found a submerged vehicle in the river near Rattlesnake Bluff Road, south of Crestview off State Road 85.
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"At the time, they weren't sure if the vehicle was occupied by anyone or not," said Deputy Sheriff Casey Dennis, one of the two divers who recovered the vehicle. "We swam out to where the vehicle was and we the dove to make sure there was nobody inside the vehicle. Had there been remains to recover we'd have to document the entire vehicle plus the position of the remains as they were found."
Fortunately divers found no evidence of remains and they spent about an hour rigging the vehicle with chains so it could be pulled out of the river by a tow truck and a tractor on the shore.
"The water temp was 52 degrees," said Dennis in an interview Monday that was posted to the OCSO Facebook page. "When you compound the cold water with the rushing current we had to work in yesterday; yesterday was kind of a tricky dive."
This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Stolen SUV pulled from Yellow River by Okaloosa sheriff's dive team
