Search, rescue dogs find missing 'Angel'

By Rose Hooper

They did. Little Angelica Hope Bryson, missing since 2 p.m., was rescued at 7:45 p.m., just two and a half miles from her Canada community home off N.C. 281.

"The little girl had been outside with her mother, when the mother went into the house for a few minutes to change the baby's diaper," said Jackson County Rescue Squad Captain Ben Clawson. "When the mother came back outside, Angelica had disappeared."

According to Clawson, Angelica, nicknamed "Angel" by her parents, Jason and Amy Bryson, wandered off above the house to a summer home up the mountain.

"Angel was used to climbing the hill to the reservoir with her mother and her dogs and evidently that was the path she took," said grandmother Martha Fisher.

"Well into our search it came a frog-strangling rain," said Clawson. "Evidently during the downpour, the little girl got under a tarp that was covering a lawn mower and may have fallen asleep."

Meanwhile, DuBose and her two dogs were working a search and rescue mission in Cherokee for a 65-year-old man who apparently wandered off.

"When I got the call about 3 p.m., the little girl had already been missing 45 minutes," said DuBose, who was on the scene about an hour later to help search for "the little lost Angel."

Her two trained dachshunds joined the other search and rescue dogs, including two bloodhounds, a Lab-chow cross and a black Lab.

Given one of Angelica's polyester playsets, DuBose's scent-trained dachshunds hit the woods. "Klein Liebschein, or 'Little Sweetheart,' is 6 years old, and she stays on the track," said DuBose. "Kleiner Schlingel, or 'Little Rascal,' he's 2 1/2, and he works air scent better. The two of them work well together off leash as a team."

Rain did not hamper the dachshunds' search, DuBose said. "Our skin changes constantly, and we shed skin cells. If we could see it, there's a cloud of DNA following behind us. That DNA trail is what the dogs chase."

Also helping search were members of the Wayehutta All-Terrain Vehicle Club.

Rescue Squad officer Kenny Melton called this search one of the "most unusual" he has ever been on. "I've never seen such an outpouring of community support," Melton said, noting that about 60 residents of the Canada community volunteered to search.

"The MAMA helicopters from Asheville arrived and just took off on their search pattern when I got the call that search dogs located the little girl," said Clawson.

"Angel. Confirmed find," searchers heard over their various radios.

Helicopters from the N.C. National Guard and Highway Patrol, both equipped with infrared night-time vision and scheduled to arrive at 10 p.m., were cancelled.

Searching at the edge of the woods near the summer home, cousin Tina Cooper, paired in the search with Roger Luker, spotted Angel first when the little girl's head peeped out from under the tarp. Angel, wearing pink shorts and a T-shirt, was in a little two-wheel cart attached to the lawnmower.

"Come on out, Angel," Cooper coaxed, "and we'll take you to Mama."

"Angel was cold from the rain and had cuts and scratches, especially on her feet since she was barefoot," Clawson said. "But she didn't have any serious injuries. She was more scared than anything."

"The whole search was like something out of the 'X-Files,'" said one of the neighbors assisting. "It was dark and cloudy after the rain and a heavy mist hung all around us. Dogs were barking in the woods, helicopters hovered overhead while about 100 people were on foot, calling out 'Angel, Angel.' It felt really strange, but then it's the only search I've ever been on."

The Glenville-Cashiers Rescue Squad, the Canada and Cullowhee Volunteer Fire Departments and the Jackson County Sheriff's Department also assisted in this search, Clawson said.

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