COAL RUN — The search for a missing teen officials believe fell into the Big Sandy River two weeks ago, continues today in Pike County.

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 missing.

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 in, 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 Thursday.

Officials will be taking the cadaver dogs back on the river today, Adkins said.

As time goes on, the body will be more detectable he said.