Further information has been released about the man found floating last Monday in Richfield Township’s Holloway Dam.
The man, 59-year-old Tony Bigelow of Flint, was recovered after several hours of effort by several sheriff departments, including the thumb’s Lapeer and St. Clair County Sheriff Offices, having been spotted by a park goer before 5:30 p.m. on January 30.
Borrowing St. Clair and Oakland Counties’ hovercraft to scour the hard to reach spots of the reservoir, more than 100 divers from a total of 16 area dive teams, including from Genesee, Lapeer, Oakland, St. Clair and Saginaw County Sheriff’s dive teams, as well as over 150 more support personnel, continued the search into the evening despite dropping temperatures interfering with equipment.
The Lapeer County Press reports that the search went on for almost seven hours until the body’s recovery around midnight, and that the death has been ruled an accidental drowning, with Genesee County Chief Park Ranger David Dwyre saying Bigelow had last been seen around 2:00 p.m. the previous day, Sunday, January 29.
Though the investigation is ongoing, officials believe that Bigelow had been walking across the reservoir’s frozen surface before falling through the ice near the dam.
