Search team perseveres despite grim circumstances to find fisherman’s body


Ozark County Sheriff’s deputies, volunteer firefighters and first responders and Missouri State Highway Patrol Water Division troopers descended on Norfork Lake at Udall Saturday evening to look for a West Plains fisherman who had launched his boat there Friday – and didn’t come back. Photo courtesy Todd Young

By water, land and air, in temperatures that sank into the single digits, a team of determined Ozark Countians and Missouri State Highway Patrol Water Division personnel searched Saturday, Sunday and Monday for Mike Meidell, 52, of West Plains, who launched his fishing boat Friday onto Norfork Lake at Udall – and did not return. 

MSHP officers found Meidell’s body and his overturned boat Monday morning on Bryant Creek about a half-mile north of Cook’s Landing, a Missouri Department of Conservation river access, according to an online MSHP drowning incident report.

The MSHP report says the accident occurred when the 2018 Lowe utility boat “side impacted” a debris pile in the stream, capsizing, and entrapping Meidell in the debris pile, causing him to drown. The accident was investigated by MSHP Cpl. J. R. Roberts assisted by MSgt. B. D. Foster, Cpl. L. B. Monahan and Trooper C. P. Chatman. It was MSHP Troop G’s first drowning fatality of 2019.

This week’s sheriff’s dispatch log (see page 12) shows that a call came in at 5:23 p.m. Saturday, March 2, saying Meidell hadn’t been heard from since Thursday, when he had launched his boat onto Norfork Lake at Udall. (The Times was unable to confirm the date of Meidell’s departure to go fishing. Although the person who called the sheriff’s office on Saturday said he’d left on Thursday, members of the search team say a friend told them he’d had coffee with Meidell Friday morning, and Meidell had said he was going fishing later that day.) 

The sheriff’s dispatcher noted in the log that, at 8 p.m. Saturday, an attempt was made to ping Meidell’s cell phone, but there was no response because it had been out of service too long.

Volunteer from Tecumseh and Bakersfield volunteer fire departments responded with MSHP officers and Ozark County Sheriff Darrin Reed and deputies Saturday evening to begin the search at Udall, where Meidell’s truck and trailer remained. 

“We didn’t know at all where he was. We were just looking everywhere,” Reed While some search team members headed out in boats to look on the lake and its shoreline, MSHP officers used side-scan sonar equipment to search the water.

The search, discontinued later Saturday night, resumed Sunday morning. Lick Creek VFD volunteers delivered sandwiches for the search team personnel, and a small trailer was brought in to serve hot coffee and provide a place where those searching could warm up after working in the frigid temperatures.

The command post moved upstream later Sunday. “We’d searched all the way to Arkansas, so we knew he had to be upriver,” said TVFD assistant chief J. B. Duke. That suspicion was confirmed when friends told the search team that Meidell sometimes fished near and north of Cook’s Landing on the Bryant.

Also on Sunday, Tecumseh VFD chief Nathanael Winrod flew with TVFD volunteer Dan Israel in Israel’s airplane, continuing the search of Norfork Lake, Bryant Creek and its shoreline. Duke said strong winds Sunday made the airborne search difficult. 

“They said they couldn’t fly as low as they wanted because the wind was tossing them all around, and sometimes they would drop a thousand feet at a time in a wind current,” Duke said. “If they could have flew on a prettier day, they might have seen him Sunday, but they had to fly too high, with the wind the way it was.”

Shawn Taylor and Jonathan Winrod, also TVFD volunteers, went up the Bryant in a boat Sunday and came close to the accident site – but didn’t know it. “They probably got within 150 to 200 yards of him. They could see the trees and the roots all in the water, but they couldn’t get up there, and they couldn’t see beyond the big pile of debris,” Duke said.

Monday morning, when the temperature dropped to 8 or 9 degrees, MSHP officers headed up the Bryant in a boat and got beyond the pile of trees that had stopped the TVFD volunteers the day before. They found Meidell’s overturned boat – and Meidell’s body, “close to the boat,” said Reed. But the boat couldn’t be retrieved via water. The search team had to find a way to bring vehicles to the remote area of the stream by land.

Later that morning, Stacy Hambelton happened to see Sheriff Reed pull up to the home of his mother, Lura Hambelton, on County Road 312. “Stacy, do you have river access?” Reed asked Hambelton. 

“Yes,” Hambelton answered.

Reed showed him a map with GPS coordinates and asked, “Do you know where this is?” 

Hambelton said he knew exactly where the indicated site was on the Bryant, which borders his mother’s property. He accompanied Reed and other members of the search team to creek; his brother, Vance Hambelton, who lives nearby, joined them there. Reed told the Times they “drove through three fields” to get to the stream.

Vance described the overturned boat as “a good-sized, flat-bottom boat, very stable. But with the kind of prop motor he had, it’s a little surprising he made it over the shoals.” Vance added that the USGS monitor on the stream at that point shows that it’s up 6 to 12 inches above normal for this time of year, “so he was able to go higher upstream than usual.”

Duke said the search team members who made their way across the Hambelton land to the river were able to turn over the capsized boat and lift it into the bed of a pickup, which hauled it back out to the county road, where it was transferred onto a flat-bed tow truck from Duke’s mechanical and towing business. The MSHP reports damage to the boat as minor.

It’s estimated that Udall is about 2 miles, by water, south of the Tecumseh bridge on Highway 160. The junction of Bryant Creek and the North Fork of the White River is about a half mile or so north of the bridge, and Cook’s Landing access on the Bryant is another half mile or so northwest of the two streams’ fork. Meidell’s body was found another half mile north of Cook’s Landing. So a rough estimate would indicate he traveled 3 1/2 to 4 miles from Udall, where he launched his boat, which was equipped with a 9.9 hp motor. 

Duke said Meidell had several friends and relatives in the area. “He was a boilmaker, and the boilmakers are pretty close around here,” he said.

Reed repeatedly praised the search team members for their dedication and perseverance despite the grim circumstances. 

“Those first responders and firefighters need to be commended for how they stuck with us,” he said. “Bakersfield, Tecumseh, Lick Creek – and Caney Mountain helped too when we moved into their area. Those guys were dedicated to finding him, even in 9-degree weather. It was a bad thing, what happened, but the way everyone worked together – the volunteers and the water patrol and my guys – was really good.”  

Meidell’s body was taken to West Plains, where funeral arrangements are being handled by Robertson-Drago Funeral Home. (See page 12 for his obituary.)

Ozark County Times

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