Maddie and Tanner searched for a missing person at 2am on the 19th.
Maddie had been dispatched to a serious car crash as an EMT that morning. Maddie reports: “The car was about 25 yards off the road, severely damaged, on its roof in a field.” She was treating two young female passengers when they shared that the male passenger, allegedly intoxicated, had left the scene on foot.
Local police began to create a search plan and Maddie, having advised her captain that she had a certified search dog, was driven back to the station to grab Tanner and assist. The police used a tracking dog in one direction while Maddie and Tanner searched another. Tanner never indicated an interest in live human scent in their search area. Later, the police found the man walking on a road two miles away.
It’s so great to hear stories like this and know that Maddie was able to provide a valuable resource in what became a multi-agency effort to locate the man, who could have also been seriously injured.
This is Maddie & Tanner’s 2nd deployment. Their 1st was following last year’s Hildale, UT flood. In Maddie's words:
“We have to be ready for many different kinds of scenarios. While we primarily train for building collapse events, our dogs can be used to search intact buildings, field and forest settings, and many other areas as needed. In this particular event, we were concerned that our victim may have lost consciousness in the field where their vehicle wrecked and due to the cold Utah temperatures, the individual could have quickly gotten hypothermia. Tanner was able to search the area quicker than we could have just on foot. These dogs are versatile and eager to work, thanks to the world class training from the Search Dog Foundation, we can do our best to help those in need. Our victim was eventually located several miles away by police, but it was still a great experience for Tanner and I."