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Pocahontas County man, search dog never gave up

Pocahontas Times photo courtesy of David Weik Dave and Sandy Weik’s bloodhound Lady Bird sits among the debris in Caldwell where she located missing teen Mykala Phillips.
Pocahontas Times photo courtesy of David Weik
Dave and Sandy Weik’s bloodhound Lady Bird sits among the debris in Caldwell where she located missing teen Mykala Phillips.

MARLINTON, W.Va. — Nine days after a devastating flood ripped through several areas in the state, search teams with Appalachian Mountain Man-Trailing and Rescue, of Dunmore, NSI-K9, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Kentucky Bloodhound Search and Rescue were called into Greenbrier County to assist in the search for lost community members.

Among the searchers were AMMAR co-owners Dave and Sandy Weik, and their bloodhounds Sunny Ray and Lady Bird.

“The first time we were down there, we were down for a run for eight straight days, and we searched ten to twelve hours a day for the first eight days,” Dave said. “We had over ninety hours of actual boots on the ground search time the first eight days. The only reason we left then was our dogs were exhausted.”

Dave explained that with a good search dog, you can get four to five consecutive days before they need a break.

The hard work and push to search paid off July 2 when Lady Bird located the body of Nataysha Hughes, 33, of White Sulphur Springs, on The Greenbrier Resort golf course.

Crews continued to search, day in and day out, until there was only one missing person – Mykala Phillips, a 14-year-old girl from White Sulphur Springs.

On August 9, seven weeks after the flooding, Lady Bird found Mykala…

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