The man was said to have been swimming with a friend near the Highway 411 bridge over the Etowah River, near Macedonia Road.
Information pulled from scanner traffic indicated that the man was seen four to five feet under water about 40 feet from the bridge.
One responder asked the dispatcher to notify the U.S. Corps of Engineers, to get them to hold off on any scheduled water releases from Lake Allatoona. The almost-immediate response was that water had been released at 1 p.m. Thursday and it would reach the site in about seven hours, or about 8 p.m.
At press time the man's name was being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin.