Crews search for missing man's body in Missouri River

The search for a college student who went missing Sunday while swimming in the Missouri River has become an effort to recover his body.

Tom Patterson, 23, was swimming with friends near a boat ramp in the Missouri River about four miles southwest of Elk Point when he disappeared. Patterson, from Frostburg, Md., is a student at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa.

Patterson hasn't been located and crews have "exhausted the area we believe he was at," said Union County Sheriff Dan Limoges.

Boats will be patrolling the river every morning and afternoon, searching the water and the banks, he said. A plane did a fly-over Wednesday.

"We're hopeful we can bring him home to his family," Limoges said.

Agencies involved in the search were the Union County Sheriff's Office, Yankton Search and Rescue, South Dakota and Nebraska Game, Fish & Parks departments, Brookings Search and Rescue K9 units and Dixon County Sheriff's Office in Nebraska.