JAY – A Jay man and a Wilton girl were treated for mild hypothermia early Thursday after spending the night lost in a swampy area off Route 4 in North Jay.

It was a relief to everyone just after midnight when police Cpl. Jeffrey Fournier notified people waiting along Route 4 to say they were found, police Chief Larry White Sr. said.

The temperature dipped into the 40s Wednesday night, according to weather reports.

Wendy Labbe said she called police about 9:45 p.m. reporting her nephew Michael McHugh, 21, and her daughter, Katelyn McHugh, 14, were lost in the meadow also known as Jay flats.

Labbe said the lost “kids” had called from a cell phone about 6 p.m. The two reported that the ATV they were on was totally submerged in water.

Family and friends thought they would be able to find them and went into the woods on all-terrain vehicles to scour the area.

The cell phone battery died on the phone and the search party lost contact before family and friends could rescue them, White said.

That’s when police were called in.

Michael McHugh’s father, Wally McHugh, said they got turned around in the woods and the ATV was stuck in a swampy area.

“I was frightened,” Labbe said. “What a feeling to know that your daughter and nephew are lost out there and you’re helpless.”

Labbe said people could hear the kids yelling but there were so many echoes, they couldn’t locate them.

“Thank God for Jeff Fournier and Darren Pollis,” she said. “They got to the children.”

Sgt. Charles Keene, officer Eric Goodrow, White and Fournier, who came out on his ATV, responded to help look for the pair.

Goodrow and Fournier along with residents Darren and Duane Pollis, Wally and Kathy McHugh, Sandy McAlpine, Lisa Smith, Patrick T. McHugh, 12, and D.J. Campbell, 14, and Wendy Labbe formed two search parties.

Goodrow led one party and Fournier, the other, White said, as they searched the woods on ATVs.

Darren Pollis and Fournier eventually had to get off their ATVs and make their way through about 300 yards of very rough terrain that included walking through deep water and crossing Seven Mile Stream and very high swale grass, White said.

Once the men got close enough they could hear voices. They started yelling back and forth and that’s how Fournier and Pollis found them, White said.

They were working in the dark with flashlights, he said.

The area was wet, high and hilly with peaks and valleys, the chief said.

“It was rough going,” he said.

Fournier was breaking branches to mark the way out, he said.

“Once they located them, they had to walk them out back through the path,” White said. “They then got on ATVs and traveled roughly a mile back to Route 4.”

Once police knew they were on there way out, White said, the heater in a cruiser was cranked up.

The parents, at times were visibly upset and worried about hypothermia but they handled it well, White said.

“It was a relief for everyone to hear Cpl. Fournier call back on radio and advise he had them and they were walking back to ATVs,” White said. “They were extremely, extremely cold and wet.”

Labbe said she was happy to see her daughter coming out. “I just held her and told her I was sorry she was out there … I just tried to comfort her. She was hysterical.”

She was scared, nervous and cold, Labbe said. They had sat on the ATV in the water with only handlebars and seat above the water line.

Keene rushed the McHughs to the Farmington hospital in a cruiser where they were treated for mild hypothermia and released, Labbe said.

dperry@sunjournal.com

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