(Staff Photo/LORETTA TACKETT)
Rescue officials with Millard East Shelbiana Fire and Rescue and the Pike County Department of Emergency Management searched Wednesday an area of the Big Sandy River to which cadaver dogs reacted the day before. However, the team found nothing after searching all day.
Rescue officials from various agencies have been dragging the river in freezing temperatures for 19-year-old Joshua Jerome Tessmer of Coal Run since his father, Wayne Tessmer, reported him missng.
The last time Tessmer saw his son, Kentucky State Police Post 9 in Pikeville reported, was Jan. 8, around 4:15 p.m., at their residence at Greenview, near the Meadow Country Club where Wayne Tessmer works. Officials found Joshua Tessmer's hat on the river bank and said there is a place near the Greenview residence where someone went into the river.
Rescue workers started a grid search this morning, beginning at the place Tessmer is believed to have gone inr, said Millard East Shelbiana Volunteer Fire and Rescue Chief Glen Adkins, who has been searching every day. A grid search entails roping off square areas in the river and searching the entire grid, a process which ensures the same area is not searched twice.
"We shouldn't miss him," Adkins said.
Search crews from various agencies have assisted in the search over the last two weeks, including the Kentucky Search Dog Association and Grant County Fire and Rescue members, who came with their sonar equipment. Pike County Emergency Management Director Doug Tackett, Adkins, and others were out Jan. 20, searching an area of interest to the dogs and sonar. Coal Run Volunteer Fire Department Chief Levi Coleman assisted from land about 1,000 to 1,500 feet from where officials believe Tessmer went in the stream,
However, Adkins said, "We found nothing."
Crews went all the way to Ivel in Floyd County yesterday.
Officials will be taking the cadaver dogs back on the river tomorrow, Adkins said.
As time goes on, the body will be more detectable he said.
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