Bloodhound helps Plainfield police track down missing man

The Plainfield police were able to track down a missing man with mental disabilities with the assistance of a bloodhound from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

About 9:20 p.m. Monday, officers responded to the 12800 block of South Skyline Drive for a report of a missing man with mental disabilities, said Plainfield police Cmdr. Anthony Novak. The man left the residence after a verbal disagreement, he said.

Plainfield police, the Plainfield Emergency Management Agency and other outside agencies conducted a search of the surrounding area, Novak said.

With the assistance of a bloodhound from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, the missing man was found in a ditch in the 12700 block of South Shenandoah Drive about three hours after he left, Novak said. He was taken to Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora for treatment, he said.

Novak said bloodhounds are “extremely useful when tracking missing persons.”

“Without the use of the bloodhound, it would have been much more difficult to track the missing person in this particular incident,” Novak said.

Cook County Sheriff’s deputy Mike Juraszek said in a statement that the bloodhound’s name is MC, short for “Melanie – Codee,” and she’s also known as “the Hammer because nothing could stop her.” She was born Feb. 25, 2019, in Florida and partnered with Juraszek in October 2019.

Juraszek said bloodhounds can be very useful in law enforcement and rescue operations.

“[A] bloodhound’s physical characteristics account for its ability to follow a scent left even for several days. Bloodhounds’ olfactory sense has nearly 300 million receptors when people have only 7 million,” he said.

A patrol dog and numerous search and rescue personnel were used to locate the missing man with unsuccessful results, leading to the use of MC to find him, Juraszek said.

Cook County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kathleen Carmody said MC walked for about 1.3 miles until she found the man. She said Juraszek engaged the man in a conversation and calmed him down until an ambulance arrived and took him to a hospital.

Juraszek said very few police departments use bloodhounds as a law enforcement tool, and the sheriff’s office often is asked to assist other agencies as a result.

“MC has done many trails, noncriminal and criminal, which helped the investigation section to obtain crucial evidence about each case,” he said.

Juraszek said bloodhounds are a highly bred animal with a legendary nose. When bloodhounds are properly trained, they can produce extraordinary results, he said.