By Steve Thompson
The Dallas Morning News

MESQUITE, Texas — Picking their way through brush alongside muddy creeks Wednesday afternoon, searchers scanned the banks for a teenage boy they presumed was dead.

Driving rains the day before had flooded the area's ditches and culverts. The rushing water swept up 14-year-old Shaun Hebert, sucked him into a drainage tunnel, and left him in some unknown place.

Early Wednesday, the searchers focused on where Shaun was last seen playing with a friend, by a creek that flows under Interstate 635 near Bruton Road.

About 2 p.m., 24 hours after the boy went missing, Dallas firefighters suited up in neoprene diving suits, life jackets and helmets. The water had receded enough for them to venture into the drainage tunnels shoulder to shoulder, crawl through on their hands and knees, and feel underneath the debris.

They soon satisfied themselves that the boy was not there.

"This is, needless to say, time-consuming, and it's very difficult," said Dallas Fire-Rescue Section Chief David Martin.

Meanwhile, one of Shaun's neighbors, 21-year-old Anthony Waggoner, walked the water's slippery edge much farther downstream. The creek forks beyond the I-635 tunnels, and its tentacles wind through thick woods.

Water the day before had pushed piles of debris far past the banks into the overgrowth on both sides

"He could be anywhere out here," Mr. Waggoner said, treading a path he knew well from explorations as a child. He remembers playing in the creeks with Shaun's older brother back then. Sometimes, they would even float in a raft.

Fire officials said Shaun and a friend were playing shortly before 2 p.m. Tuesday when the water overtook them. The friend swam to safety, but Shaun was sucked into a drainage pipe, the friend said. Investigators said witnesses' accounts differed on whether the boys were swimming or had fallen in.

Shaun was a ninth-grader at West Mesquite High School, where he played French horn in the band.

"He was real cool," said classmate and fellow band member David Melendez. "He would always make people laugh."

Shaun and the friend who last saw him routinely played together after school, tossing baseballs, riding bikes and messing around. This week is spring break.

"You don't see one without the other," said neighbor Raquell Clark. Shaun, like his friend, lived on Poplar Drive, little more than a stone's throw from the drainage tunnels.

When searchers gave up on finding Shaun's body in the tunnels, they expanded their search to more than a mile downstream, where Mr. Waggoner had been looking.

Shortly after 4 p.m., two search dogs, Misty and Saber, bounded toward a spot in the water near West Cartwright Road, yelping and tugging at their leashes.

Firefighters stepped into the muddy water up to their knees, dragging the bottom with sticks and poles. They shoveled through sticks and trash piled nearby in the woods as a helicopter hovered low overhead.

"I think we need a lot more manpower," one of the firefighters said, resting his pickax for a moment on his boot. "These piles take forever to tear apart."

After many hope-filled minutes, they came up with nothing.

They called off the search about 5:15 p.m., and plan to return today.

Copyright 2008 The Dallas Morning News