Deep-Water Divers Comb Holston Lake for Missing Woman

SULLIVAN COUNTY, Tenn. – Twenty minutes.

That’s all the time the two commercial, deep-water divers had to sift through the silt, tree stumps and boat slip and dock guidelines beneath Holston Lake in their search for a missing woman Saturday.

Any longer at the bottom, and Burt Decker and Mike Bourne might not return from the 200 foot depths at the Lake View Dock Marina.

Their deep-water scuba tank mix of oxygen and nitrogen is a deadly cocktail coursing through their veins when coupled with high water pressure and freezing lake-bottom temperatures.

“You go out there and duck and go under a cable or something like that ... it’s extremely time consuming,” Decker said.

While they can get to the bottom in about three minutes, their return to the surface must take at least an hour, to allow their bodies to decompress before they exit the water.

Alice Bachman, 55, of Johnson City, was last seen at her boat slip Tuesday evening. Two days of unsuccessful diving, dragging equipment and submersible cameras followed, with recovery teams pulling back at 12:15 a.m. Thursday.

One hundred feet is the deepest that local rescue divers are certified to search, and diving deeper is the only option left.

“I’m not a mountaineer, but I compare it to saving someone stuck on the top of Mount Everest,” said Jim Bean, the water rescue team leader for the Kingsport Life Saving Crew. “Not anyone can go up there and get them.”

Bourne and Decker, both from Blacksburg, Va., volunteered when called by friend and deep-water diving specialist Mitch Skaggs, of Bluff City. Skaggs coached his friends from the surface because he left his diving equipment in California where is working on an ongoing film project.

They first dove to the silty bottom slightly before midnight Friday.

“It’s cold and it’s dark and it’s very, very silty,” Bourne said, adding that the trick is to avoid touching the bottom – or risk a mushroom cloud of silt that takes time to settle.

Saturday’s dive marked their second search. The third, and last, is scheduled for this morning. Bourne and Decker need at least 12 hours between each dive, to allow their bodies to recover from the oxygen and nitrogen mix used in their tanks.

“We want to bring closure to this for the family, but ... some things have got to be done in a safe and methodical manner,” said Jerry Fleenor, the Sullivan County Emergency Management Agency director.

Decker and Bourne are combing 50-foot swaths of the lake bottom with each dive. They will have completed a full circle beneath the boat slip by the end of the last dive.

“Twenty minutes up here is a lifetime,” Decker said. “Twenty minutes down there is not much time at all.”

And if they don’t find Bachman’s body this morning?

“We’ll sit down and discuss that then,” Fleenor said after gulping a deep breath.

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