Body of Wyoming man recovered from Flathead Lake
Daily Inter Lake | Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 6 months, 1 week AGO
A view of Flathead Lake in Northwest Montana. (Daily Inter Lake FILE)
Search crews on Wednesday recovered the body of a Wyoming man who went missing in Flathead Lake earlier this summer.
The remains of James Dominguez, 58, were found in an area north of Matterhorn Point, according to Lake County Sheriff Don Bell.
Dominguez, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was presumed drowned on July 15 after a specialized rowboat he was in capsized during a strong rain and windstorm. He was training for an ocean-rowing competition aboard a high-tech, two-person boat called Cosimo, the Lake County Leader reported. Two members of the three-person crew, Jayme Linker and Neil Lomas, were rescued and taken to a hospital for treatment of hypothermia.
A friend of the family told the online news outlet County17.com that the group issued a Mayday distress call around 6 a.m. near Wild Horse Island after the boat capsized. Linker and Lomas were tethered to the vessel, but Dominguez was not. According to the report, the friend said one of them attempted to reach out with a rope, but Dominguez was beyond their reach due to the weather.
The body was transported to the state medical examiner’s office for an autopsy, Bell said.
According to oarwardbound.com, Dominguez was a retired law enforcement officer and military veteran who “has spent his life embracing discipline, resilience and extreme challenges.”
The trio’s journey was scheduled to begin in November, with Linker and Dominguez rowing across the Atlantic from Morocco to Houston. The second leg would cross the Pacific from California to Australia, and the third would navigate the Indian Ocean to Africa, covering 16,000 miles in total.
Bell credited Ralston Underwater Search and Recovery of Idaho for assisting in the recovery effort. Other assisting agencies included Lake County Search and Rescue, the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office and Dive Team/Search and Rescue, Two Bear Air, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office and Search and Rescue, and the Kootenai County, Idaho, Sheriff’s Office.
“The Lake County Sheriff’s Office wishes to express our gratitude to the many volunteers and other agencies that assisted us in this months-long search,” Bell said.