Recovery efforts to locate the victim of a drowning that occurred at Milford Lake on Christmas Eve will reconvene Tuesday.

Two Fort Riley soldiers were duck hunting around Charley’s Point on the lake early Christmas eve morning when one of them, Thomas Hedrick, 31, Fort Riley,  got into a boat and went to retrieve a duck they had shot. The boat began to take on water and the wind blew the boat towards an ice sheet. Hedrick tried to get out of the boat onto the ice sheet, and the ice sheet would not support his weight.

The search for Hedrick was called off last Tuesday due to very poor weather conditions.

Tony Wolf, Geary County Sheriff, confirmed that approximately 35 to 40 people will continue the search Tuesday morning.

“I have numerous boats coming in from across the state,” Wolf said. “I have boats that are equipped with enhanced side scan sonar. I have two dive teams that will be in here tomorrow and a whole bunch of personnel coming in to assist with this.”

Wolf said that the cold weather has been the factor for holding off the search,”I don’t want one tragedy to turn into two or three others. Safety of the personnel out there trying to recover this individual is one of those things where we’ve got to get this done, but safety’s first and foremost in everybody’s mind.”

Multiple agencies will be assisting with the search including Geary County Sheriff’s Department Personnel, Geary County Emergency Management, Kansas Department of Emergency Management, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas State Park’s Department, Kansas State Wildlife and Parks, Ft. Riley DES, Ft. Riley PD, Ft. Riley 1st ID.

Wolf told JCpost.com that he is feeling confident about tomorrow’s search,”The weather conditions are looking favorable and the man power and equipment are going to be here ready to go.”