SUMNER – A young Sumner boy was found in woods Wednesday night, wet, cold and screaming for help after running away from home two hours earlier.

“It could have turned out a tragedy,” Oxford County Deputy William Nelson said of 10-year-old Jake Ducharme’s decision.

The Hartford-Sumner Elementary School student was taken to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway for evaluation. A hospital employee said he was treated and released.

Ducharme “got in trouble at the school and kind of ran away and got lost,” the deputy said.

The boy crossed the highway from Chizzlers convenience store on Route 219, where he resides on the second floor, Nelson said, and headed toward Hartford and West Paris shortly before 3 p.m.

The boy trekked about 2 miles into the woods in the freshly fallen snow that hid ice-covered puddles. After breaking through the ice and getting his feet soaked he tried to follow his tracks home, but darkness fell before he made it back, Nelson said. At one point he fell from a tree, but the reason he was in it was unclear, he said.

“I think he busted his shins pretty good in the ice,” Nelson said.

When the boy’s uncle and mother realized he was missing, they and Ducharme’s sister followed his tracks until they lost them, and then called 911, the deputy said.

Nelson said he and the boy’s uncle, Kyle Hutchins, eventually found Durcharme 300 to 400 yards into the woods about 5:15 p.m.

“He was screaming that he couldn’t walk and he was wet. We ran over to him and he was just crying his eyes out. He was very remorseful. He says he will never do it again. He said, ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.'”

Nelson said the boy was dressed for the weather, but not for falling through ice and losing his way in the snow and darkness.

He complained of cold feet and legs, and paramedics transported him to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway.

Maine Game Warden Josh Smith assisted in the search and rescue.