Leflore County authorities were unable to verify a reported drowning over the weekend in the Yazoo River near Greenwood.
“As of right now, we have received no reports of a body that has been found in the Yazoo River,” Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks said Monday.
Banks said that authorities were notified Saturday morning by a man who was near the river that he thought he saw another man fall in or jump into the river off County Road 170, near Grenada Boulevard, and the man was struggling in the water.
Emergency personnel from the county as well as the Greenwood Police Department and Pafford Emergency Medical Services were dispatched to search the river.
County Fire Coordinator Bobby Norwood, who was also a part of the search effort, said two emergency calls were made. He speculated that a call that was made to Pafford EMS at 10:05 a.m. Saturday may have led to a 911 call that led to the search.
Norwood said a couple camping along the river might have called for help.
“I think what might have happened was the people that were camping along the bank of the river and made the 911 call possibly heard the same people who made the medical emergency call to Pafford EMS hollering for help, and they thought someone had fallen into the water,” Norwood said Monday.
Upon arriving and searching the area, Norwood said that no vehicle marks, footprints or any other signs of a possible drowning could be found Saturday.
He said that the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks joined local authorities in conducting the search.
“We did multiple checks on everything, and all of us came to the conclusion that there weren’t any signs of anyone slipping or falling into the river,” he said.
“We just didn’t have anything to go on, so we just decided to call it off until we had a missing persons report.”
He said, “No one has seen anybody, nobody could give us a name, nobody had an age, weight or color — we had nothing.”
Banks said Monday afternoon that no missing persons reports had been made.
Although the search was called off late Saturday evening, Norwood said that Leflore County authorities are continuing to monitor the situation.
- Contact Drew Richardson at 581-7233 or drichardson@gwcommonwealth.com.
An earlier version incorrectly reported that the search continued past Saturday.
