Boater finds body in Conn. River

CHESTER, Conn. (WTNH) -- Lots of people took Tuesday off and spent it on the water, but not for the reason Alan Collin did.

"I was determined, I was telling my future wife last night, I'm going to to go find that body. She said, 'Are you crazy?' and I said, 'No, it's something I'd like to do,'" he said.

It's something he wanted to do for the family of Dariusz Czarmota. The 37-year-old jumped off a dock to swim to the family boat. Then he disappeared under the water.

That was Sunday afternoon. Police and firefighters spent hours Sunday and Monday searching the Connecticut River near Chester for his body. They stopped looking Monday night.

"A body will tend to start to float after a certain amount of time, so it becomes more difficult as it starts to float. It will start to move," explained Deputy Chief James Grzybowski.

Family members said more should be done and they appealed to boaters and others to help them in their own search.

"We have found that the efforts put forth to find my father by local authorities and the coast guard aren't adequate and now were planning to take search efforts in our own hands," daughter Ashley Czarnota wrote in an email.

The person who took the search the hardest was Dariusz's brother. They were swimming side by side. He's a firefighter and he is just devastated he couldn't do more to save his own brother.

But about 9:15 a.m. Tuesday morning Collin saw something in the water.
 
"I saw the body floating and I stopped, 911, and they came to pick up the body out of the water," he said.

"State Police went out and confirmed the body," Grzybowski said. "We pulled it out of the water. Family did identify the body as being their brother."

The body was taken to the Medical Examiner's office to be examined and positively identified.

Collin feels he gave the family some closure.