Town police, members of two local volunteer fire companies, and ambulance volunteers joined forces on the evening of Saturday, February 18, to help find an elderly hiker who had become lost in Upper Paugussett State Forest, a 752-acre densely wooded tract along the Lake Lillinonah section of the Housatonic River.

At 6:35 pm, police received a cellular telephone call from the 73-year-old local man when he realized that he was lost in the woods as darkness had fallen and the battery on his cellphone was draining down, according to police spokesman Lieutenant Aaron Bahamonde. The man had started hiking at about 3 pm on the balmy day.

The wooded expanse stretches from the state's boat launch at 160 Hanover Road downriver to the area near the intersection of Alberts Hill Road and Valley Field Road North. Police listed the point of origin of the man's cellphone call as the wooded area in the vicinity of the intersection of Hanover Road and Silver City Road.

At 7:15 pm, Newtown Hook & Ladder and Sandy Hook volunteer firefighters were dispatched to aid in the search for the man.

Lt Bahamonde said three police patrol officers focused on the search for the lost man. They were Bart Lorancaitis, Timothy Schoen, and Chelsea Harold.

Because the lost man had a cellphone that was transmitting a signal to the town's emergency communications center, police were able to use the technique commonly known as "pinging" to determine his latitude and longitude in the woods via the global positioning system (GPS).

Ofc Lorancaitis stayed in the communications center to coordinate the electronic searching, while Ofc Schoen and Ofc Harold walked through the woods, flashlights in hand, correlating the electronic geographic data with some mapping to eventually locate the man on the icy, snow-covered, wooded terrain, police said. Dogs were not used in the search.

When he was found, the man was tired from his ordeal, but not injured, police said. Police had searched for the man for about 70 minutes before locating him, Lt Bahamonde said.

After finding him, police walked the elderly man back to a roadway where an ambulance was stationed. Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps medically evaluated the man at about 9 pm and then released him.

In view of the incident, Lt Bahamonde urges that people who are hiking to use caution in the their travels. Hikers should carry a fully-charged cellphone and have a good flashlight on hand, he said.