Search teams looking for a missing diver off the Florida coast recovered the lifeless body of a different man, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said.
Teams were combing the waters after a West Palm Beach resident went missing Sunday while freediving when they discovered the body of a man believed to be around 50 years old.
“The body does not appear to have been in the water for an extended period of time,” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook statement on Monday.
The clothing and physical appearance of the unidentified man did not match that of the missing diver, authorities said.
The body was found about 16 miles northeast of the Fort Pierce Inlet. An investigation remains ongoing to determine how and when the man died.
The discovery was made as teams searched the waters for a freediver who went missing near the site of the Halsey shipwreck, about 13 miles southeast of the inlet. Freediving is when the diver does not use a breathing apparatus.
The 435-foot-long ship was traveling from Corpus Christi, Texas to New York on May 6, 1942, when it was struck by a torpedo and sank, according to Fishing Status.
Florida Freedivers, a dive shop in North Palm Beach, identified the missing diver as Virgil Price, a member of their team. The shop said the Coast Guard suspended the search after teams searched for more than 36 hours and covered 1,400 miles.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with our brother and all those affected by this tragedy,” the shop said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
Price was last seen wearing a green wetsuit with an orange stripe on the hood, yellow weights on his weight belt, and black carbon fiber fins.