THE high profile search last June for missing teenager Noah Donohoe is set to feature in a special documentary due to be screened next week.
The Search, on BBC One NI on Monday night, follows the work of the Community Rescue Service (CRS) whose volunteers drop everything to find high risk missing people in difficult conditions.
Using body cams, first hand interviews and footage from searches, the observational documentary explores the search for Northern Ireland’s missing people through the eyes of the CRS and the loved ones of those affected.
Among the cases featured in the one-hour Covid-19 special, is the story of schoolboy Noah Donohoe.
The 14-year-old, who was a pupil at St Malachy’s College, disappeared after leaving his home in the Ormeau Road area on Sunday, June 21 last year.
He was making his way by bike to Cave Hill Country Park to meet friends and was seen on CCTV in north Belfast but never arrived.
Hundreds of people took to the streets to help in the search.
On June 27, his body was found in a storm drain in the north of the city.
A post-mortem examination found he died as a result of drowning and last August coroner Joe McCrisken said investigations are continuing.
Sean McCarry, Regional Commander of CRS, tells the programme that on receiving the call about Noah, he thought the teenager "would come back through the door in 10 minutes".
However, as time went on, he said there was a "real sense of urgency".
"We were covering a massive area using in excess of 150 search technicians working right through the night, Sunday night right through to Monday," he said.
Mr McCarry also paid tribute to the support from the community.
"Right from the outset, when people realised a 14-year-old was missing within the north Belfast area, the community united together, worked together. Everybody wanted to help whatever way they could."
Six days into the search, after Noah’s body was found in a storm drain, Mr McCarry had to break the news to the volunteers, telling them: "Our hearts are broken for the family."
Noah’s aunt, Niamh Donohoe says from the very first contact with Mr McCarry "it was just reassurance".
"They were relentless," she said.
"They definitely gave us hope.
"We knew there was never a minute or a hour that they weren’t looking, that they weren't searching and there was always hope whenever you knew they were out there."
**The Search is on BBC One NI on Monday at 10.45pm
