Anchorage Daily News

SAND POINT -- About 100 people in Sand Point spent half the week scouring the land and sea near a local cannery in search of a diving contractor who took a bathroom break Tuesday night and never returned. Friday morning, he walked back to the docks unharmed and without explanation.

John Shannon, 35, was performing tests on the dock at the Trident Seafoods cannery in Sand Point Tuesday night when he told his supervisor he needed a break and left, said his boss, Tim Jewell, president of Washington-based Enviro-Tech Diving Inc., which the cannery has contracted.

Shannon never returned, 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 scoured the dock, harbor, airport and town for any sign of Shannon, he said.

Then, Friday 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 had started Monday, was fired for walking off the job, Jewell said. His mother had flown up from the Portland, Ore., area to be near the search and was in the process of flying her son back to Seattle, he said.

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