Local Search And Rescue Crews Exhausted

Members of the North Baldwin Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team are worn out and tired. The 35-member volunteer team from Bay Minette has spent the past two weeks assisting crews in South Mobile County in the search for the four children believed to be thrown off the Dauphin Island Bridge.

"We've put in about a thousand man-hours," says Chief James Phillips with North Baldwin Sheriff's Search and Rescue. "It's taken its toll on all of us."

"You're out there and you're searching and you have so much time to think about what's happened and you ask yourself, how could a father do this to his own children?" says Matt Burton with NBSSAR. "I just can't comprehend it. We're glad we've been able to help."

The volunteers will spend the next several days cleaning up their boats, checking equipment and re-stocking their supplies.

"We're not ready to exhale yet," says Phillips. "We want to sit down and go over everything and see what we did right and wrong, then we'll have closure on the incident."

Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran says he'll offer counseling services to all search and rescue volunteers who participated in the search for the children.