State Police Drone Team Trooper Finds Marblehead's Missing Sport

MARBLEHEAD, MA — Sport was so close to his Fluen Point home for so many long days and chilly nights in a row.

Cathy Eidson could not only feel it, she could hear it. The occasional yelp, or the tell-tale whimper, coming from the heavy brush within the wetlands near the family's Marblehead home convinced her that her 10-year-old Australian Shepherd mix was still out there.

Only whenever waves of those hoping to help her family find Sport looked, he was nowhere to be found.

"We could hear moans coming from in there," she told Patch Thursday night. "Then when we would call for him, nothing. When we would go in and search for him, nothing. It was driving me crazy because you could hear him cry."

Missing Dogs Massachusetts sent an army of volunteers to help look for Sport. Eidson said members of the Marblehead Fire Department used a drone to search for him. Marblehead Patch profiled him in hopes someone would spot him around town.

It wasn't until Thursday — a full week after Sport disappeared — that Eidson came downstairs and saw a truck in the driveway belonging to State Trooper Brian Doak from the Massachusetts State Police drone team. Doak drove two hours to the Marblehead home and brought with him a heat-seeking drone state police got from the Department of Homeland Security.

"He went out there and was able to locate a spot where they were picking up heat," Eidson said. "Then they went in and found them.

"It was a miracle. They weren't giving up — they just weren't giving up — until they found him."

State police said the drone's "Forward Looking Infrared" camera detected a heat source inside an area thick with brush. Doak documented the location and hacked his way through the thick vegetation toward the heat source.

When he reached the spot the drone had detected, Sport was there alive and well sitting down, apparently unable to get out on his own.

Minutes later, he was back in his yard where he belonged.

"He was shaking," Eidson said. "He was very scared. That was a long time. I started to walk in the house to get him some water, because he must be dehydrated after all that time, and all of a sudden he's going the other way out toward the street. But once he got on the porch he was just like a puppy jumping up and down."

The Massachusetts State Police drone team is utilized for search and rescue missions, as well as for video and photographic documentation of evidence from the air, mapping of crash or crime scenes, and to provide overflight support for tactical missions, such as those involving barricaded suspects or hostages.

Eidson said she thinks Sport broke the electric fence in the yard chasing a fox. She said the brush in the wetlands "is like a wall" and made all searches difficult.

But she credited Missing Dogs Massachusetts to their dedication to finding volunteers to help find Sport.

"We can't rave enough about them as an organization for all they did for us," Eidson said.

She said — despite his dramatic ordeal — Sport did not even require veterinary care as of Thursday afternoon.

"We are very happy," she said, "and can't wait to all get to bed."