‘Please take me with you': Diver recounts eerie discovery of teacher missing since 2010
Baek Min-gyu, 55, a former leader of the Andong water rescue team, was conducting maintenance work on the dam on May 17 when he accidentally dropped a ladder into the water twice.
Wearing scuba gear, he dove down roughly 30 meters to retrieve it, only to drop it again in the same spot. The second time he went in was when he found the body, which was later confirmed through DNA testing to be the vice principal, who was 53 at the time of his disappearance on August 17, 2010.
Baek, who participated in the original search 15 years ago as a civilian, said he felt as if he were hearing a voice before the discovery.
"I kept hearing, 'Please, take me with you,'" he said in an interview with a local news outlet. "I don't even know why I went back so deep into the water for that cheap ladder. I just felt I had to."
The victim's body showed damage to the head, arms and legs, but other parts of the body, including the torso, remained mostly intact. The Gyeongbuk Provincial Police Agency said the water and mud appear to have combined to help preserve the body.
The police plan to give Baek a certification of appreciation for helping solve one of the region's longest-running missing-person cases.
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