Body recovered in the Atlantic was not the one searchers were looking for

Search teams searching the Florida coast for a diver who went missing over the weekend found a male body on Monday, but not the one they were looking for, according to law enforcement.

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“His clothing and physical characteristics do not match those of the missing diver from Sunday,” the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

Authorities said they have not yet identified the man they pulled from the water, CBS reported. According to police, the man, who wasn’t believed to have been in the water for very long, weighed between 200 and 225 pounds and appeared to be older than 50 years old.

Law enforcement authorities were looking for Virgil Price, a Florida free diver, who went missing on Sunday. Price is 39 years old. He was last seen wearing a green wet suit when he was freediving near the Halsey, a World War II-era shipwreck, around 130 miles north of Miami.

In free diving, a person does not use scuba equipment to dive, but instead holds their breath until resurfacing.

The ship, which was struck by a torpedo on May 6, 1942, while en route from Corpus Christi, Texas, to New York, rests about 65 feet below the surface, according to Fishing Status.

The U.S. Coast Guard said on social media that it had suspended the search for Price after searching for him for 36 hours. More than 1,400 miles were covered in the search.

“The decision to suspend an active search is never taken lightly. We extend our sincerest condolences to Mr. Price’s family,” Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. John Beal said.

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