Cedar Hill Fire Protection District firefighters rescued a family of five who got lost and were walking in circles on a trail at Don Robinson State Park on Feb. 10.
Assistant Chief David Jones said two adults and three children ages 11, 14, and 16, had been in the park for about an hour and a half before calling 911.
“They were hiking on a trail and were not familiar with the area,” Jones said. “They were making circles on the trail and couldn’t make their way back to the parking lot.”
Jones said no one in the hiking party was injured when rescue crews arrived on the scene at 4:45 p.m. The family was lost on the 3.9-mile Sandstone Canyon Trail.
He said firefighters used a pickup truck to partially drive up the trail, then used GPS coordinates to find the family and bring them back to the parking lot.
“(The family) was Hispanic and it was kind of hard to communicate with them,” Jones said. “There was a bit of a language barrier.”
Jones said 911 Dispatch was able to find the family’s exact coordinates by pinging the phone used to make the emergency call. Using the coordinates, Cedar Hill firefighters were able to find the family and bring them back to the parking lot in 40 minutes.
Jones said this was the first call of 2024 for a lost hiking party at the state park. Last year, Jones recalled Cedar Hill Fire assisting a few groups, about 10 people total, to find the trailhead at the park.
Jones, who hikes at Don Robinson State Park frequently, said knowing the trail before beginning a hike is important.
“I always use a map, either on my phone or, a lot of times, the park has maps available,” he said. “I know there’s a picture map on their message board.”
Jones said the crew was back in service by 5:30 p.m. Big River Ambulance District assisted on the call.