TOWN OF RUSHFORD, WI (WTAQ) – The search continued Tuesday for a 39-year-old man who went missing last week on the Fox River near Omro.
The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department says while there’s nothing new to report regarding the search, Lt. Tim Eichman is talking about the difficulties they’ve had trying to locate this man in the area they believe he might be.
“With the cold in the preceding days, obviously it takes its toll on the personnel,” said Lt. Eichman. “The extreme cold is passing the operational limits of our gear, which prevented us from putting more divers in.”
Eichman says they’re getting help from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Winnebago County Dive/Rescue team and the Omro-Rushford Fire Department.
Eichman explains how they’ve tried to manage the extremely cold temperatures since the man disappeared.
“We’ve rotated our personnel in and out so we don’t succumb to cold injuries,” said Lt. Eichman. “We’ve also attempted to utilize the warming shelters provided by the fire department to warm up our dive equipment.”
The unidentified Omro man was last seen on the night of Friday, January 15. Authorities believe he was with a group of people staying at a cabin along the Fox River. The man is believed to have let a dog outside, and that he followed the dog out to open water.
Eichman says they continue to center their search near Delhi Road in the Town of Rushford.
“As long as we have a good search area and equipment that we can still utilize, that we think is going to be beneficial to the search, we will continue,” said Lt. Eichman, adding that the final call is with the sheriff on whether to end the search.
Eichman says that the experience of this search is also causing them to re-evaluate their equipment, which he says was purchased with cold weather in mind.
“This operation is unusual just the extreme temperatures,” said Lt. Eichman. “But, obviously, with the issues we’ve run into, upgrading or different gear options is something that we’re looking at in the future.”
