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Minnehaha County rescue divers will continue the search for Lyle Eagle Tail, 28, of Sioux Falls Saturday. Eagle Tail jumped into the Big Sioux River at Falls Park in Sioux Falls Thursday night to help rescue a boy in the water.
The boy's sister, Madison Wallace, 16, also jumped in to save her brother. Her body was recovered early Friday afternoon, but crews suspended the search for Eagletail at 8 p.m. Friday night.
“You can't see in front of your own hand. So a lot of it is just by feel. So it is tedious work, but they're doing a good job,” Sioux Falls Fire Rescue Division Chief Jeff Helm said.
Extreme amounts of frothy white foam hampered efforts early on. Helm said rescue crews worked for hours just to get through it.
“We've slowed down the water to help, but we may have to adjust our operations in the morning to remove some of that foam,” Helm said.
Divers spent the day working in pairs, while Lyle Eagle Tail's friends and family watched from the shore, waiting for an end to the day-long dive. With a rescue effort now renamed a recovery, finding Eagletail will not mean good news.
“It’s a grid-type search,” Helm said, “The divers will do some areas and the areas and boat will go back and forth across the river all the way down to the overhead dam where we recovered the first individual.”
Falls Park is closed to the public while the search continues.
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