Rescue group involved in Tyler Doyle search to offer boating safety courses
A volunteer rescue group that spent 10 days searching for missing duck hunter Tyler Doyle plans to offer boating safety courses.
“I know it’s not boating season yet, but a lot of boaters have never shot a flare. They don’t know the difference in a smoke flare, a flare cartridge you shoot out of a gun, dye that you drop in the water, there’s all kinds of warning systems,” Greg Richardson of the North Myrtle Beach Rescue Squad said March 14.
His organization quickly joined what grew into an interstate, multi-agency search for Doyle - a 22-year-old last seen around 4 p.m. on Jan. 26 near the Little River jetties.
Richardson said the rescue squad plans to do flare training “and let people shoot them so they actually know what they’re doing.
Exclusive interview with Tyler Doyle’s family: volunteers needed, not money
Most of those things are at the bottom of a boat somewhere and when they need them, they can’t get to it,” Richardson said.
Richardson said the rescue squad averages eight members per call, though only four are needed to operate its vessel.
“For us, any day is boating season,” he said. “You never know when something’s going to happen that we need to get into the water.”
The S.C. Department of Natural Resources Feb. 14 ruled out foul play in connection with Doyle’s disappearance. A small craft advisory was in place the day he went missing, meaning seas weren’t conducive for smaller vessel operations.
“We’re just out there trying to do the right thing,” Richardson said. “Some of our folks took the day off just to go out there and do what we could just to try and find that young man.”
