‘Absolutely amazing’: K9 helps find missing man on Hawaii Island

HAWAII ISLAND (HawaiiNewsNow) – A police K-9 is credited with helping save a 70-year-old man’s life after he went missing for nearly two days.

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Big Island police search dog Trina found David Arai of Oahu Monday night inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

It took the 3-year-old Labrador retriever and her handler, Officer Christopher Ross, about an hour to locate Arai two miles away from where his rental car was found.

Arai was later hospitalized for dehydration and exposure.

“I wouldn’t want to know what would happen if we didn’t locate him. Our goal was to find him,” Ross said, adding he had Trina sniff Arai’s pillowcase to seek his scent.

When asked about conditions during the search, Ross recalled, “It was rainy, it was dark. The trail had a lot of mud, mud and rocks that we had to deal with…anyone at any age being outside for that long, you know, in those conditions is, you know, life-threatening.”

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Arai is the second missing person Trina has found in the past two months.

Last month, Trina and Ross found a 13-year-old girl who ran away from her home in Waikoloa.

“The day that this juvenile went missing, the wind condition was really pumping. And It makes it harder to actually track because the sand is getting blown everywhere. But Trina was able to navigate through that. She has like an amazing nose,” Ross said.

Trina is trained to find missing children and endangered adults islandwide.

“The way that she works is just absolutely amazing,” Ross said.

Originally from Sweden, Trina joined the department in February with the help of a $25,000 donation, and officials say the K-9 is proving to be a valuable asset.

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