VANCOUVER (CBC) - RCMP divers on Friday recovered a body spotted by a group of friends searching for Andrew Koch, who was swept into North Vancouver's Lynn Creek on Sunday.

The friends of the 26-year-old were searching for him in the area where he went missing when on Thursday night one of them spotted a body with an underwater camera. The body has not yet been identified.

The RCMP had suspended their search on Tuesday, after determining the water was too dangerous. But Koch’s friends continued to search on their own. Josh Havelaar, who was operating the camera, said they searched for six hours along the river Thursday.

"That’s how much people care about Andrew and that’s the reason we went in there. I was inspired by just the support that all of his friends showed," Havelaar told CBC News Friday, while waiting at the site for the retrieval process to start.

"An off-duty firefighter, [a] friend of our victim, was down the trail where the search and rescue believe he may have been and he saw something in the water and he went to investigate," said Cpl. Randall Wong of North Vancouver RCMP.

Lori Payne, who didn’t know Koch but joined the search, said his friends are heroic for their efforts.

"The boys went into the river really deep, so they tethered themselves with safety harnesses and they rented an underwater camera and they took the whole thing into their own hands,” Payne said.

"The boys were getting in the water, up the raging river. It was risky, it was dangerous but it was to put the family at rest that he was there or wasn't there. It was their mission," Payne said.

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