divingtorch

MARSHFIELD —

For two weeks, Michael Chorzewski was one among many town residents mourning Steven “Zac” Woods’ disappearance in a boating accident.

Saturday he turned out to be the one who spotted the young man’s body on the ocean floor off Brant Rock.

“I don’t know why it was me who found him,” the 48-year-old businessman and snorkel diver told The Patriot Ledger Monday morning. “It was one of those things.”

Chorzewski’s discovery wasn’t by accident. He swam out from the Brant Rock beach Saturday afternoon to look for the remains of the 23-year-old Woods, who’d been missing since July 16. Woods was riding with his friend Justin McDonald when the boat’s steering jammed and Woods was pitched into the water.

Chorzewski, the owner of Boston Bathtub Resurfacing, had resumed snorkel diving just a week ago, after a 15-year break. But that past experience gave him a search plan.

“Everybody else looked right (south), so I looked left (north),” he said of the direction he took.

He swam “way out” – about 500 yards offshore – and scanned the sandy ocean floor down through the clear water. He’d just turned back in the direction of the shore when he spotted what looked like a body about 20 feet underwater.

Even though that’s what he was trying to find, “it was a shock,” he said.

He quickly surfaced, dropped his red and white “dive flag” and called for help to a nearby private boat. He waited in the water until the Marshfield harbormaster and then a State Police dive crew arrived.

When he told the private Hingham boat crew why he was there, they said, “So you know who that is?” Chorzewski said yes.

He stayed on the harbormaster’s boat for two hours before he was taken to shore. Word of his discovery had already reached divers and swimmers, so they applauded Chorzewski when he stepped from the boat.

“It could have been any of us,” he said of Woods’ accident. “That’s why the whole town was concerned.”

He hopes he gets the chance to offer his condolences in person to Woods’ parents, Brian and Leanne Woods. In the meantime, he’s still wearing a Zac Wood wristband he bought last week from a local surf shop.