BEL AIR, Md. — The search was on after a resident reported seeing a suspicious person outside their home on Glastonbury Way in Bel Air who had headed into the nearby woods.
The challenge---finding the autistic 15-year-old in the middle of the winter storm who may not realize his life was at risk.
“I would classify him as a vulnerable juvenile,” said Sgt. Serg D’Alto of the Belair Police Department, “This wasn’t the case of necessarily a runaway that we think went to a friend’s house or what not. Prior experience with this juvenile showed he is attracted to bodies of water.”
Bloodhound tracks down missing teen in snowstorm
An appeal to other agencies brought Senior Trooper Taylor Bracken and K9 Margo of the Maryland State Police to the scene, and the bloodhound immediately jumped into action doing what she does best.
“Our initial school was held in the dead of winter last year and tracking across ice and snow wasn’t anything new to us as a team,” said Bracken, “To the untrained eye, it can just look like blank, while canvas, but to a bloodhound, it is a layered archive of different human scent signatures.”
When the initial call came in, it was reported that the teen must have left his home sometime between eight o’clock and eleven o’clock in the morning.
That meant the teen may have already been exposed to the snow, ice and freezing temperatures for hours and time was of the essence.
K9 Margo never blinked, leading the rescue team to the victim on a wooded hill three hundred yards from the nearest house in half an hour’s time.
“If you had not made it to the young man, do you think he would have survived?” we asked D’Alto.
“If he would have remained where he was, absolutely not,” he replied, “I was dressed for the weather and we were feeling the effects of it. He was inadequately dressed, soaking wet from being out in the elements and the weather wasn’t getting better any time soon. This was the best possible outcome.”
