On May 6th, 31 days after Angela went missing in the WI River we put together another group to dive on trees underwater where some cadaver dog teams had some interest. Gary Goerge and I cleared the three snag areas by diving on them. We now have 2′-3′ of visibility with special underwater lights.
We know went to the “last resort”plan that we have been talking about for some time. Darrin, from the Richland County Emergency Managment lined up a local logger with a skidder. We then hooked up the cables to the trees and pulled them up onto the bank to be looked over. We had boats in the water downstream and poeple on the high banks to watch for anything to come up. After the trees were pulled out we dove the areas to give a final check. Still no sight of Angela.
In my 25 years as a public saftey diver, I have never seen or heard of any recovery operation go to these lengths. The amount of effort and resources poured into located this little girl has been impressive. Although it is still hard at the end of the day, I know that we are given it everything.
Darrin will be continueing to work with the cadaver dogs and organizing shoreline searchs.
Our heartfelt thoughts are with this family each and every day!