Police and the Volunteer Rescue Association were a day away from deciding whether to continue searching for the 21-year-old man, because a lack of volunteers, when his body was found.
According to police the young man’s family has expressed their immense gratitude for the dedication and outstanding efforts of emergency services over the past 13 days.
“On behalf of the family police want to thank the efforts of all the volunteers, SES, Burrendong and Dubbo VRA and all the support provided by the Burrendong Recreational Park and the rangers; the use of boats, resources and hours of volunteers time has been immense in this search,” Inspector Matt Goodwin of Dubbo police said.
Police recovered the body just after 11am yesterday, after conducting a grid search of Macquarie Arm for the second time that day.
Since the planned fishing trip turned to tragedy on June 21, a huge land, water and air operation followed and emphasised the need for more volunteers.
Dubbo Rescue Squad captain David Dickey said volunteers are an integral part of the community’s fabric.
“All emergency services are lacking volunteers, we’d like to remind people of the wonderful job volunteers can do for their neighbours and the people in the community.”
All volunteers will now be de-briefed and receive counselling if needed.
Emergency services have told of their relief since finding the body at Macquarie Arms yesterday morning.
“We don’t like to leave things like this open ended, we would have liked to have found him alive, but in this case we didn’t.
“On behalf of the rescue team I would like to pass my sympathy to the family through this tough time,” Mr Dickey said.
Burrendong Recreational Park manager Peter Beatty said it was unusual for it to take almost two weeks for the body to surface.
“Usually it’s between three and five days but according to one of the VRA blokes one person drowned and was down for eight weeks.
“There is no guarantee, we are not sure what the water temperature was like, the size of the person or how they are dressed, that’s all going to effect how they pop up.”
belinda.galloway@ruralpress.com