The search for a 10-year-old girl who fell through the ice on Whirl Creek near Mitchell March 6 passed the one-week mark as local emergency crews continued to comb the creek’s icy banks Sunday.
Local firefighters and OPP officers refocused their search efforts Sunday around Whirl Creek at the west end of Mitchell, where one week ago on March 6 a 10-year-old girl fell through the ice.
Perth East-West Perth fire Chief Bill Hunter said Sunday that firefighters from across Perth County and local OPP officers were back combing the icy banks of Whirl Creek hoping to spot something they hadn’t seen in previous searches of the area by ground, air and with the help of an OPP dive team.
“We’ve got West Perth firefighters plus firefighters from Milverton and North Perth helping,” Hunter said. “We don’t have any water team today. Just with the freezing and the amount of snow, we’re just doing a ground search. Every area has been searched at least once — some areas have been searched several times — so basically we just started at the point (she was) last seen and we’ve been working our way west.”
Hunter said he hadn’t expected to contend the with the amount of snow that fell on the region Saturday and into Sunday, which he suggested could lead to an early end to Sunday’s search efforts. However, Hunter also noted that a specialized water search-and-rescue team from the Northern Bruce Peninsula Fire Service will join the search on Monday and Tuesday.
“They’ve got an inflatable (boat). It’s not a dive team, it’s a surface-water search team,” Hunter said. ” … Lots of fire departments from across the province have been extending their services. … We’re kind of limited because we can only do shore-based (searches), so having guys that can actually get in the water is certainly a benefit for us.”
Police and firefighters have since last Sunday been searching the tributaries of Whirl Creek – using divers and a helicopter – for the girl, who fell through ice around 10:30 am March 6. The search area expanded to the Thames River in the Town of St Marys on Thursday.