UPDATE -

Divers with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Services Bureau and Firefighters with the Shelby County Fire Department have located the body of the missing about 2:30 this afternoon (April 2, 2008). 

The man’s body was found about 2000 feet from where he fell in.

He has been identified as Clyde Stewart, 56, of Memphis.

Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputies and Volunteers from the Sheriff’s Emergency Services Bureau worked with the Shelby County Fire Department last evening and today to rescue two people from areas flooded by heavy rain. In one incident, a child died. A man involved in the second incident is still missing.

Last night, volunteer divers with the Sheriff’s Office Emergency Services Bureau recovered the body of Jacob Wade, 7, who lived in the Horton Gardens Housing neighborhood.

Just after 5 o’clock yesterday evening, Wade and three other young boys were wading in a creek behind the public housing development. Recent rains had turned the creek into a pond. Rescue workers searched several hours before two divers found Wade’s body about 9:30 last evening. Sheriff’s detectives say Wade apparently drowned in about 10 feet of water. Family members say the boy could not swim.

Then, just before 6 this morning, a wrecker driver was swept away after he attempted to pull a car out of a ditch in South Shelby County. Deputies say a Mazda 6 going east on Holmes Road went into a ditch about a mile east of Reynolds Road. Tony Williams, 43, of Collierville, who was alone in the car, managed to get out of the vehicle just as the ditch water began to rise. He then called for assistance.

A Sheriff’s Deputy and two tow trucks arrived from Star Towing in Memphis. Despite warnings from the Sheriff’s Deputy one of the drivers attempted to put a hook on the car’s frame.

As the wrecker driver stood on top of the car, it began to move and the wrecker driver fell into the raging water. The vehicle traveled about 20 feet into a culvert under Holmes Road.

Investigators say the wrecker driver had tied an air hose around his waist as a makeshift lifeline but the line snapped by the force of the water.

Sheriff’s Deputies, volunteers with the Sheriff’s Office Emergency Services Bureau, the Shelby County Fire Department and a diver from the Desoto County Mississippi Sheriff’s Office continue their search this afternoon for the wrecker driver.

Emergency Services workers at rain flooded ditch off of Holmes Road

Emergency Services workers locate car in ditch at Holmes Road