Albany officials search for driver of submerged truck
Truck went down public boat ramp at Marine ditch, officials say
By Brad McEwen
ALBANY — Emergency personnel were still searching late Friday for a 52-year old Albany man whose Ford F350 pickup truck was found submerged in the Flint River earlier in the day.
A search was continuing for Michael R. Backey, 52, of Albany. Albany Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Rubin Jordan said the hope was that Backey was alive and that authorities would be able to locate him. Backey was not inside the truck when rescue divers forced their way into it Friday.
“What we’re going to do right now is continue to search on the land, and we’re going to have a boat going back and forth on the banks of the Flint,” Jordan said. “We hope he is still alive. We hope that he may have gotten out and got on the bank and may be disoriented and lost. That’s why we’re going to continue the search.”
Backey’s truck was found by AFD rescue divers in 5- to 10-feet-deep water about 150 yards from the Marine Landing public boat ramp after emergency personnel responded to a 911 call that was received around 9:15 a.m.
Rescue divers went into the water around 10:20 a.m. in the area north of Radium Springs and subsequently found the vehicle, but no sign of Backey.
Keith Ambrose, AFD battalion chief and lead diver, described the rescue dive as “tough,” saying that the water conditions were a factor.
“The conditions, as far as where we could see — we could see about a foot in front of us at the bottom. If you turned your light on, you might could increase that to two feet,” Ambrose said. “The current’s very strong, and we were all weighted very heavy and still had to fight the current to stay in (touch) with the truck and do a search of the truck. We didn’t find anybody in the truck.”
Ambrose said the divers also searched the area around the truck, and that the water current, again, had an impact.
“Searching around the truck in the area, we probably searched within at least a 50-foot pattern around the truck, just by sheer virtue of going past the truck with the current and having to work our way back up to the truck,” explained Ambrose. “We had to have all of our divers tethered to lines and to the boat. It was a pretty tough dive.”
Unless the situation changes, Ambrose said, there was no plan to send divers back into the water to continue searching.
“As far as the dive right now, no divers will be going back down unless we actually find something,” he said.
Backey is from Newton but resides in Albany, officials said, and is described as an African-American male who is 5-feet-9 and weighs 280 pounds. Albany Police Department spokeswoman Phyllis Banks said he was last seen wearing a black shirt, gray pants and brown work boots.
Related Articles
Small actions can help save big on utility bills
The high temperatures of July and August can bring scorching utility bills as air conditioners hum to keep houses cool. Albany Utilities Residential Conservation Auditor Willie Jackson offered some tips on making summer cooling bills more manageable.
Bigger budget will mean improvements at Dougherty County’s landfill
“It’s certainly an opportunity where we can grow and make this very beneficial for years to the community. It’s a service that we provide for the community and I want to prolong that resource for the community. It’s not just fill it up and close it.”
Putting on the Ritz: The rise, fall and renewal of Albany’s Harlem District
On July 7, the Albany City Commission unanimously approved final construction drawings for a comprehensive restoration of the Ritz Theatre and Cultural Center, clearing the way for the project to move into competitive bidding after years of planning and preservation efforts. The decision marks the latest chapter in a decades-long effort to preserve one of Southwest Georgia’s most significant African American landmarks.
