LA County Fire Department K-9 team returns home after assisting in Texas flood search

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A Los Angeles County Fire Department K-9 team is home after helping with search efforts in the deadly floods in Texas.

The dogs' efforts nearly cost one of them their life. One of the K-9s is recovering after becoming ill during the search.

The search crews, along with K-9s Prentiss and Clifford, were welcomed home by their fire family at LAX on Sunday morning after 18 long days in central Texas.

The K-9s were a vital part in the search efforts, but an emergency surgery left Prentiss with some battle scars.

"I noticed that he wasn't acting right. He started drooling, and his stomach was a little bit swollen, which is very abnormal. So we went to go outside, thinking he just had an upset stomach with a lot of the water that's very contaminated there," said L.A. County Fire Capt. Celina Serrano.

The 10-year-old K-9 was diagnosed with gastric dilatation and volvulus (GVD) -- a condition that can be life-threatening.

"I thought, like, yeah, we're going to come back without him, which was pretty scary. So, I'm glad that he made it through," Serrano said.

Due to the difficult conditions, the crew had an uphill battle.

"The heat and humidity were something else," said L.A. County paramedic firefighter Jonathan Munguia. "We've never been to Texas, so that was something we had to adapt to for sure. "

Devastating rains caused flooding over the July Fourth weekend, killing 137 people. Fire and K-9 teams helped with the search and recovery efforts in the hardest-hit areas.

"It's kind of one of those things where we're trying to get as much done as efficiently as possible, because they're not gonna last the entire day if we kind of burn them all out," Munguia said.

Orange County Fire also sent its human remains detection team to Texas. As for the search efforts, an incident report has yet to be released.

"Out of respect for the families, we're not going to get into any details, on like whether we found anything or not. They performed their task very well with trying to reduce the search area for teams and directing resources where they need to go," Munguia said.

For now, the team says they are just glad to be back safe.

"I mean, we love what we do, but we're ready to come home. It was a long, long deployment," Serrano said.

The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services also deployed K-9 teams from Oakland, Sacramento, Riverside County, and Menlo Park.