VENICE — A local family has now found their loved ones’ body after a fishing trip in Venice cost the 86-year-old his life.
The Coast Guard said that the search for missing man Sang Nguyen, who reportedly fell out of his fishing boat near mile marker four in Venice on June 21, had been suspended as of June 24.
Around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening after the official search was called off, Nguyen’s family tells UWK they found his body near the wreckage site.
According to the Coast Guard, the 21-foot fishing boat that Nguyen was riding in hit a submerged object. That impact ejected two riders from the boat. A third person in the boat was able to recover one of the people, while Nguyen could not be found.
The Coast Guard tells UWK that it launched multiple searches attempting in and around Venice to find the missing man, including using boats and a MH-60 Jayhawk Helicopter from the Coast Guard Air Station in New Orleans, but officials were not able to locate the man.
The Coast Guard Station Venice branch ultimately announced they had suspended their search as of June 24th.
UWK spoke with Nguyen’s son, Garland Nguyen, who says his father was on the boat with Nguyen’s other son and uncle when the incident happened.
“They were coming back from an overnight fishing trip, and on the way back, they hit a floating log in the river, and it somehow wrapped up one of the motors and it caused one of the engines to shut off. It caused the boat to veer real hard, and it threw my brother and my dad out at the same time. My brother was driving the boat. The only other person that was on the boat was my uncle and he was sleeping at the time because he was fishing all night. When he realized that my brother and dad were gone, he swung the boat around. By that time, my dad had already drowned, and my brother was barely hanging on,” Garland explained.
“We believe my brother was holding on to my dad, trying to keep him afloat because he’s 86 years old. He’s a good swimmer, but at that age, there’s not much you can do,” Garland explained.
While the Coast Guard suspended its search, Garland was still hoping to recover his father’s remains. Rain and rising water in the Venice area kept making search attempts increasingly difficult.
Ultimately, Garland said his father died doing what he loved best, explaining that his father cherished nothing more than being out on the water with his family members.
“It was the last thing he told my brother. ‘Take me fishing. I don’t know when I’m going to die, and I just want to go fishing,’ so he did what he loved. It’s tragic. It’s really tough. He was still pretty healthy. He probably had another ten to twenty years left,” Garland said.
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