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A Friday morning report of a possible drowning in Calderwood Lake turned out to be unfounded.

A Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officer received a call at his home that an empty canoe was floating on the upper side of Calderwood Dam. The officer went to the dam and confirmed the report, then requested help from Blount County emergency responders including divers to search for a possible drowning victim.

Blount County Fire Chief Doug McClanahan said BSORT, the Blount Special Operations Response Team, was paged at 10:43 a.m. Friday. McClanahan said his department responded with a boat, divers and a rappelling team due to the steep terrain alongside the deep lake which lies across the border between Tennessee and North Carolina.

The Blount County Volunteer Rescue Squad, the Blount County Sheriff's Office, additional TWRA officers and North Carolina wildlife officers responded to begin a search of the lake and shoreline near where the canoe had been found.

Blount County Sheriff's Deputy Jeff Burchfield was on his way to the search area driving the BCSO Dive Team truck at 11:07 a.m. when he was involved in a collision at the intersection of West Lamar Alexander Parkway and West Broadway Avenue.

According to a Maryville Police Department report, a Saturn SUV driven by Connie Ailey, Alnwick Boulevard, Maryville, was stopped in the westbound lanes of the parkway for traffic ahead. The 1984 Chevrolet truck used to carry dive team equipment was also traveling westbound with lights and sirens activated. The truck struck the Ailey vehicle in the rear, apparently due to a brake malfunction.

Ailey's passenger — Lucy Settlemyre, 76 — was taken to Blount Memorial Hospital by Rural/Metro Ambulance Service. She was treated in the emergency room and released. Ailey, 51, was also treated in the emergency room and released.

As soon as the accident victims were taken from the scene and with the approval of investigating Maryville officers, Burchfield attempted to resume his mission. However, as he tried to restart the dive team truck, he lost power and the truck rolled back to strike a Maryville police cruiser, causing minor damage.

The boxed-in truck once used for Snap-On Tool delivery and converted to its present use by dive team members continued toward Calderwood Lake. Burchfield encountered another mechanical problem as he attempted to maneuver around a curve on U.S. 129 near the intersection with Railroad Bed Road.

The truck engine cut off, causing the power steering to fail. The truck went off the right side of the narrow highway, back on the pavement and into the on-coming traffic lane. When Burchfield tried to steer back into his lane, the vehicle traveled across the traffic lane and off the road, ending up on its side at the foot of an embankment.

Burchfield managed to get himself out of the overturned truck, but fellow deputies who reached him minutes after the accident insisted that he go to Blount Memorial Hospital to be checked.

Other members of the dive team as well as other emergency responders scrambled down the embankment and unloaded the equipment from the wrecked truck, then took it to the base of operations for the possible drowning.

Burchfield, 39, was treated in the emergency room and released.

Meanwhile, searchers used three boats to probe the water near the dam as others searched the shoreline on both the Blount and Monroe county sides of Calderwood Lake. The deep, cold water lake on the Little Tennessee River covers about 570 acres in Graham and Swain counties in North Carolina and Blount and Monroe counties in Tennessee. Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Cherokee National Forest border the eight-mile long reservoir. Cheoah Reservoir in North Carolina is upstream of Calderwood and Chilhowee Reservoir is downstream.