A British-born commercial diver has died after failing to resurface during a vehicle recovery operation in Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada.
Gary Smith, 67, from Chatham, was working at Erieau Marina on 18 March to attach cables to a submerged vehicle in the marina’s boat channel when he went missing at around 11.30am.
Emergency services launched a multi-agency search involving Chatham-Kent Police Service, Chatham-Kent Fire Department and the Ontario Provincial Police underwater search and recovery unit.
‘Due to the conditions in the channel, specialised equipment and resources were required to assist in the search,’ said Chatham-Kent Police Service in a statement.
Smith did not resurface as expected and was reported missing shortly afterwards. His body was recovered by dive teams the following morning.
The vehicle he had been working to recover had entered the channel in November. Its occupants escaped at the time, but winter icing delayed efforts to retrieve it.
Police have not released further details about the circumstances of the incident.
Smith, who was born in Manchester, England, began diving in 1986 and had worked professionally in the industry since 1993. He was a well-known figure in the local diving community and previously ran Red Devil Scuba in Chatham.
Through a series of endurance dive events, he helped raise more than C$90,000 for charities over seven years. He was recognised by the Ontario Underwater Council for organising a 24-hour dive, an event format later adopted elsewhere in Canada.
Smith had previously described south-western Ontario as ‘a diver’s paradise’ because of the number of shipwrecks in Lake Erie. His dive operation was also credited with discovering the wreck of the steamer City of London.
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