A crewman on a Bering Sea commercial fishing boat leapt into the deadly cold water and fought rescue efforts before vanishing, authorities said Friday.
"At this point it looks like a suicide," said Thomas Lowy, a state trooper at Dutch Harbor.
The victim was identified as 40-year-old Michael Leo Beaulieu. His commercial fishing license lists his home as Frisco, Colo., but he might have been somewhat transient, Lowy said.
Crewmen aboard the fishing vessel Arctic Fox reported Beaulieu jumped overboard shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday.
The boat, which had been fishing for cod using traps known as pots, was heading to Dutch Harbor and was about 11 miles to the northeast when the man jumped, the U.S. Coast Guard reported.
Beaulieu, who wasn't wearing a survival suit, "refused to swim toward a life ring thrown to him and swam away from a fellow crewman who donned a survival suit and went in to rescue him," a Coast Guard news release said. "The man then reportedly dove and was not seen again."
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