Hutterite dive team pulls body from river, ending agonizing search for boater
Mom of Brett Oryniak: 'help and support from friends, loved ones, and even complete strangers was wonderful'
A volunteer dive team helped recover a body from the Red River this weekend, ending an agonizing search for a missing boater.
Brett Oryniak, 27, was in a boat with three others when it capsized on the Red River near Kildonan Settlers Bridge. Three men managed to make it out of the water to safety, but Oryniak did not.
On Saturday evening, The Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team (HEART) pulled a body from the river near the North Perimeter Park north boat launch.
Oryniak's mother, Kari Myker, confirmed the body was her son's on Monday.
"The help and support from friends, loved ones, and even complete strangers was wonderful to see. The love for Brett we felt while on the search was incredible and very comforting," she wrote in a statement.
"Brett will be remembered for his good nature and kindness, his loyalty and his ever-present smile."
The volunteers from the dive team credit Oryniak's friends' determination as the reason they were able to bring him to shore, so his family could lay him to rest.
"There was a tremendous amount of relief," said Paul Maendel, a volunteer diver with HEART. The dive team stepped up after a call to help in the search.
The small group of volunteers were able to recover the body without diving, instead using their boat after a friend of the deceased saw it had resurfaced again.
Maendel was impressed with the continued faith the deceased's friends and relatives had. They kept searching for the body, which they said they initially spotted floating last Tuesday.
"Every waking hour they walked many miles along the bank just the sheer effort of that and their willpower to continue searching when it seemed hopeless especially when they had witnessed what appeared to be a re-float and then a re-sinking. Then you kind of lose heart but they didn't.
"They kept on it and in fact it was a friend who did see the re-float and just alerted us to the fact that there was something floating and needed to be checked out."
Days-long search
Winnipeg's Drag the Red group also got involved in the search.
In her statement, Myker thanked Drag the Red, including member Kimberly Kostiuk, the dive team, Oryniak's friends and all the volunteers who helped look for him in the days after he went missing.
"You guys never gave up," Myker wrote. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
She said the family is requesting privacy, but urged anyone who'd like to show appreciation to consider donating to any of the groups involved, or groups Kostiuk supports.
"They were so dedicated to helping us, and are committed to helping anyone in need," she wrote.
Diving in river dangerous
Diving in the Red River can be dangerous and requires special skill, which is why the HEART team will only go underwater if absolutely necessary.
"Even then it's just like a yo-yo dive. You go straight down you do a minimum search and then you're back up again," Maendel said, explaining how difficult it can be to work through a current.
HEART divers have to be tied up or they risk being pulled away in the current while having zero visibility just an inch below the surface of the Red River.
It's the reason Maendel commends Winnipeg police and Manitoba RCMP divers. He also tipped his hat to Drag the Red and the Bear Clan Patrol, which helped in the search for Oryniak and spotted his body a few days earlier.
Recovering bodies from the water hits close to home for members of the team who've experienced firsthand what it's like to have a relative drown and then not be able to recover their body from the water for days.
"The reward is in having these families reunited with their loved one."
That alone makes volunteering worth it, Maendel said.
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With files from Elisha Dacey