The Cedar Hill Fire Protection District rescued a couple who lost their way in Don Robinson Park in Cedar Hill on May 6. It wasn’t the first time firefighters had to find someone lost in the park, and it probably won’t be the last, Fire Chief Mick Fischer said.
“We find a person or a group about every other month,” he said. “Usually people get sidetracked on an old logging road or a deer trail and the next thing they know, they don’t know where they are.”
This time the call came in at 6:45 p.m., just as storms were beginning to roll in, Fischer said.
“They called 911 and said they were lost in the park,” he said. “Somehow they got off the trail and all they could tell us is that they were near a cave.”
Firefighters arrived at the park at 6:51.
The woman had a cell phone and used it to find the couple’s GPS coordinates, and firefighters “walked right to them,” Fischer said.
He said firefighters had to walk a couple of miles into the park to find the couple and the two dogs they had with them. They all were back out of the woods by 7:31 p.m.
Fischer said he wants to work with park officials to get the word out that visitors need to have a fully charged cell phone with them when they take the hiking trails in the park.
Cell phone GPS locations make it easier for the district find people, sending just two or three firefighters to a particular location rather than 20 or 30 to comb the entire park, he said.
“If they know how to use the map on their phone and drop a pin for their car in the parking lot, when they open it, they can find their way back.”
Once a person is lost in the park and contacts the fire district, though, Fischer said it’s best to stay put until emergency responders arrive.