The body of a scuba diver was recovered by the Seattle Fire Department on Sunday morning at Seacrest Park in West Seattle, in the same area where a diver had been reported missing Saturday night.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office is expected to verify the identity of the deceased.
A 33-year-old woman was reported missing at 10 p.m. Saturday after failing to resurface at the end of a dive class at Seacrest Cove 2, a popular diving location. The woman was accompanied by six other students and two diving instructors, according to Fire Department spokesperson Kristin Tinsley.
Seattle fire and police conducted a search at the diver’s last known location near a sunken boat, known as the Honeybear boat wreck, Saturday night before the search was suspended at 12:30 a.m. Sunday.
Divers from the Seattle police’s harbor patrol planned to resume the search Sunday morning, but four recreational divers on an unrelated dive in Seacrest Cove discovered a diver’s body at around 11:30 a.m. before police arrived. The body was found about 35 feet down near the Honeybear wreck.
Two of the divers emerged upon discovering the body, waving their arms in the water and yelling for help. The cove, usually busy with divers and classes, was quiet Sunday morning, but two people preparing diving gear on the shore called 911.
The divers declined to comment.
“This is the first scuba diver in the city of Seattle that I’m aware of that we’ve responded to (recently),” Tinsley said. “We never want to see tragedies like this strike.”
The death is one of multiple water-related emergencies reported in the Seattle area this weekend. On Friday, a 52-year-old woman died in Carney Lake, in Pierce County west of Gig Harbor, and a 61-year-old man from Nevada went missing after jumping off a boat in Lake Washington, authorities announced.