July 19, 2010|By Brent Jones, The Baltimore Sun
Authorities are continuing a search for a man missing since Sunday afternoon after he and two friends went swimming in Liberty Reservoir.
Maryland State Police say the men were illegally swimming in the manmade lake about 5:45 p.m. The man, believed to be in his 20s, attempted to swim across a 100-yard cove with another friend. Police say the friend made it, but the other man tired midway through and attempted to turn back. He went underwater and could not be found by his friends, according to a police spokesman.
The cove, off Deer Park Road at the Baltimore County/Carroll County line and a half mile through the woods, is about 60 feet deep, police said.
Dive teams from a local volunteer fire department, the Baltimore Police Department and state police resumed searching for the man at 8 a.m. Monday and planned to comb the area until night, spokesman Greg Shipley said. He said authorities searched for the man for about three hours Sunday night.
Shipley said swimming at the reservoir is particularly dangerous because "you can be standing on one level and then drop a significant distance."
Kurt Kocher, spokesman for the Baltimore Department of Public Works, which is helping with the search, said the strength of the water currents can also be deceptive.
"Because the lakes are unnatural and you have water heading down these dams, you're going to get strong currents that you wouldn't in natural lakes," Kocher said.
brent.jones@baltsun.com
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