Anchorage Daily News

About 100 people in Sand Point spent half the week scouring land and sea near a cannery in search of a diving contractor who took a bathroom break Tuesday night and vanished.

This morning, he walked back to the docks unharmed and without explanation.

John Shannon, 32, was performing tests on the dock at the Trident Seafoods cannery in Sand Point when he told his supervisor he needed a break and left, said his boss, Tim Jewell, president of Washington-based Envirotech, which the cannery has contracted.

Shannon didn't return, and a search of his quarters the next morning revealed he had not stayed there, Jewell said. A search party consisting of about 100 volunteers and cannery workers began, with people scouring the dock, harbor, airport and town for any sign of Shannon, he said.

Then, this morning, Shannon walked up to the docks dry and clean but would not tell his boss or police where he had been or what he had been doing, Jewell said.

Shannon, a new employee who started Monday, was fired for walking off the job, Jewell said. His mother, who had flown up from the Portland, Ore., area to be near the search, was in the process of flying her son back to the Lower 48, he said.

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