WAKE COUNTY, N.C. — Searchers recovered a body in Falls Lake Monday night after two boats collided Sunday afternoon.

What You Need To Know

  • Sunday afternoon, two boats collided on Falls Lake in Wake County

  • Searchers recovered a body in the lake Monday night

  • As of Monday evening, teams covered about 80 acres on the lake using various technology in the search

The Wake County Sheriff's Office said searchers located the body after 30 hours of searching.

First responders rushed to the lake around 1:45 p.m. Sunday after a collision was reported between two boats.

In a Monday afternoon press conference, officials didn’t confirm the person's identity but described him as a “young man.”

Chief Tony Godwin, with the Wake County Sheriff's Office, says 50 people, 12 boats and a K-9 were involved in the search efforts.

As of Monday evening, they had covered about 80 acres on the lake using underwater drones, sonar and mapping software. The entire lake is more than 12,000 acres.

Lt. Brandon Coffey, with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, says the equipment they’re using has found other things like debris and garbage under water.

“When you’re looking for something underneath the water, obviously it’s much more difficult than when you see it on land. When you use this technology it’s like an echo effect. And whenever the waves bounce back, they’re identifying stumps, log jams, we found a bucket. We found a number of things in the area. So any item that we do find down there we do exhaust it and try to make sure it’s not what we’re looking for,” Coffey said. “It’s definitely challenging.”

Coffey also says their approach and methods will evolve as time goes on.

"Some aspects do change based on the number of hours and the time limit that someone is suspected to be in the water. The buoyancy can change, so it can move. If there is a body in the water, it can move. It’s weight dependent. There's a whole lot of variables. So each person is specifically different. But I can tell you that we're going to exhaust every option that we have to wait till we give this family some closure,” Coffey said.

For the safety of rescuers, officials paused the search Monday night as it got dark. There are 175 miles of shoreline at Falls Lakewhich is between 15 and 35 feet deep.

A different person was taken to a hospital on Sunday with serious injuries from the crash. Family and loved ones were waiting at the scene all day on Monday for updates on the search.

“You know, our heart goes out to them. We want to do everything we can to be there for them and to bring some sort of resolution,” Godwin said.

NCWRC is leading the investigation into what caused the two boats to crash into each other.