(KLFY) -- The body of 22-year-old Riley Strain was pulled from a Nashville river Friday morning after a two-week-long search that garnered national attention.

While the Missouri student had no ties to Louisiana, that didn't stop one organization from helping a family in need.

"People need help, and that's what we're called to do. We go help people," United Cajun Navy Incident Commander David Flagg said.

You may know the United Cajun Navy for helping in natural disasters, but their help has no limits.

"It's really simple. It's that we're called by the Lord to do so," he added.

When Strain went missing after a night of drinking in downtown Nashville, the United Cajun Navy responded as soon as they got the call from his family. For nearly two weeks, a group of volunteers aided in the search for Strain, bringing in airboats, hovercrafts, even dog teams.

While the search ended how no one hoped it would, Flagg says he was more than willing to drop everything for strangers who became more like family.

"I said well you know, I don't know how y'all feel but I feel like I've got some new family," Flagg said. "In a situation like that, where you're just with each other. Riley's father was with us every minute of every day that we were operating."

Flagg says it's the same with fellow United Cajun Navy volunteers: You become family.

"Whatever personal differences that are there, that gets put away because you all have the same effort and that's to fulfill that mission, whatever the mission might be," he said.

United Cajun Navy volunteers don't know the people they're helping most of the time, but that doesn't stop them.

"A lot of us involved in this are law enforcement. I'm a former Pennsylvania state trooper, and we have a tendency to be a little jaded and have a little bit of a hardened shell. But inside if somebody said they haven't been emotionally invested in the operation, they're lying," Flagg added.

He says members of the Midwest chapter are now in Ohio helping tornado victims.

Latest news