The Porter Fire
Department’s new K-9 partner, Jakob--successor to the late great Harley--had
his first find on Monday, after a Liberty Township boy went missing and the
Porter County Search & Rescue Team was mustered.
Porter Fire Chief
Jay Craig told the Chesterton Tribune this morning that, at 5:59
p.m., the Search & Rescue Team responded to a home on C.R. 200W near U.S.
Highway 6, after a 13-year-old boy described as “distraught” and
under-dressed for the frigid winter weather left his home.
On his arrival at
the scene, Craig first asked the boy’s mother for scent articles from the
boy’s bedroom and was provided with used clothing and a sheet. These Craig
wiped with gauze, which he then provided to Jakob for a good whiff.
Craig and Jakob
next began walking east from the house, in the direction the boy had last
been seen heading by his brother. “And off we went,” Craig said. “We got out
of the subdivision and 20 minutes later we found the boy in a field east of
C.R. 200E.”
The boy had wrapped
himself in a sheet which he’d managed to find somewhere but “was very cold
and blue,” Craig noted. He was quickly put into a Porter County Sheriff’s
Police squad car and taken home for treatment by EMS.
Jakob’s reward--the
same as Harley’s for a successful mission--was a tennis ball, Craig said.
“But on our way
home I stopped at McDonald’s and got Jakob his first-ever cheeseburger.”