Django's good nose could save a life on Wednesday evening (October 13th): The area search dog discovered the missing Weyarner not far from the Mangfall bank.
Weyarn
- The large-scale search for missing persons on the Mangfall in the Thalham area (Weyarn municipality) came to a happy end on Wednesday evening (October 13th).
According to the police, the emergency services initially failed to track down Weyarner, who had been missing since noon.
At first it was only clear that the father of the family had parked his e-car, a small transporter, at the hikers' parking lot at the Thalham water extraction plant of the Munich municipal utilities in Reisachstrasse.
Found out when searching for missing persons in Weyarn: Search dog with owner find man in bushes
It was already dark when Franz Meiser (50) was on the way back to the car with his Australian Shepherd Django. “It was the last round,” says Meiser, who lives in Dürnbach (municipality of Gmund). About 1.5 kilometers upstream from the parking lot, on a hiking trail, the five-year-old male suddenly pulled into the bushes. “I had him on a 15 meter long tow line,” reports Meiser.
And indeed Django had found the missing person, about 50 meters from the river bank.
The dog sat in front of him and barked until his master had arrived.
Meiser took over the first aid.
The 58-year-old Weyarner was approachable, but very exhausted, drenched and hypothermic.
The rescued man spent the night in the hospital.
"He was really lucky," says Meiser happily, "we found him at the last minute and nobody knows how he would have survived the night." The temperatures dropped to 0 to 3 degrees.
There was danger to the life and limb of the missing person
Why the Weyarner left the apartment on Wednesday lunchtime with an unknown destination is still unclear. According to the police, it has not yet been possible to talk to him about it. The 58-year-old is a passionate mountaineer and there were climbing ropes in his car. According to initial findings, he was out and about in the search area during the afternoon, but could not find his way back to the car and did not respond to the calls of the search parties. "We started the search because there was a risk to life and limb of the missing person," said a police spokesman.
From 2.15 p.m., a total of around 100 rescue workers (DLRG, water rescue service, police and mountain rescue service) were on the ground as well as the Edelweiß police helicopter and, in some cases, Christoph 1 from ADAC air rescue. Caroline Amann acted as head of operations at the DLRG Gmund. "We first searched the bank areas," reports Amann. Franz Meiser was already there, as the deputy technical head of operations at the DLRG Gmund, but still without Django. After two hours it was clear: now the dogs have to deal with it.
Franz Meiser called home, his girlfriend brought Django to the deployment area.
As a rescue dog team, the two belong to the well-established rescue dog team of the DLRG Bad Aibling.
“So I worked in a double role,” says Meiser.
Django had only passed the exam a week ago, it was his first tough job - in a year that began very unhappy for the dog.
Django's career was already on the brink
The Australian Shepherd is trained as an area and debris search dog and is also a specialist in water location. “We train two to three times a week,” says Meiser. Django was thrown back in the spring by a serious injury after an unfortunate jump; he had to wear a cast and was out of action for many weeks. "It was even on the brink of whether he could even be used as a rescue dog again," reports his master.
Django was ready for action on Wednesday, a few days after the exam. He was put on his harness, with a luminous collar, bell and reflectors. “Such a search is always teamwork,” emphasizes Meiser. Several dozen dogs were used that afternoon. The mantrailer dogs found the traces of the missing person directly from the parking lot and thus indicated in which direction he had migrated. “Important preparatory work was done,” reports the Dürnbacher.
Nevertheless: Django was the hero of the evening, celebrated by the entire rescue team, for whom the success acts as a great motivation to continue training.
"At home he got treats that are not always available", reports his proud owner.
On Thursday, Django first took a rest.
"Such a search is exhausting for the animal," says Meiser, "he is very tired today and sleeps a lot."
"That usually only happens once in a career"
For a rescue dog team, it is the highest of feelings to actually find a missing person and possibly save a life.
"That usually only happens once in a career," emphasizes Meiser, who was also in the Czech Republic on Monday when they were looking for the missing Julia (8) in the Bohemian Forest.
Django was there too, but not in action.
On Wednesday over 100 rescue workers were deployed on the Mangfall, including 35 police officers, around 25 water rescuers from the water guards from the district and Bad Aibling and the DLRG Gmund, as well as the DLRG Bad Aibling with the rescue dog team, police dogs, the DLRG Tegernsee, the mountain rescue service. Technical team from Hausham, the mountain rescue search dogs Hochland, the BRK rescue dogs Miesbach, the Johanniter rescue dogs Rosenheim and the BRK readiness catering from Hausham and Holzkirchen.
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