Lost on Duty

[dragonspider]

Here's a crazy one, right from a real incident that happened yesterday evening.

I was sitting on my duff in my living room when I see about six local police cars pull up in front of my house.

Being the nosy neighbor that I am, I turn on my scanner and pickup the radio traffic.

I live close to rail road tracks, and some large fields and wooded areas. Turns out an officer responded to one of my neighbors to help them search for a lost dog.

Not quite sure all of the details, but all of the radio traffic indicated that the officer managed to get himself lost in the woods. The entire police department was out looking for this guy.

He kept calling out his position, indicating what he could see, and what he couldn't see. When asked if he could see the residence, he said no. When asked what he could see, he said a large open field, an old school bus, and an old white camper with tan trim.

Nobody seemed to know where he was at. It started getting dark, and I was kind of starting to wonder if they'd ever find this guy.

He ended up giving a good enough description of the path he took into the woods to lead another officer to him, and they walked a short way back to a residential street and called out their position.

So my question.... Have you ever been "lost" on duty?.... and, what kind of razzing is this guy going to get when he gets back to the station?

[JD45]

Kinda hard to get lost in a city..;)

[MOCOP]

Sounds like a city feller to me. :D

[sbrad]

I've not been lost, but I did get in a foot pursuit one time in unfamiliar territory. After it was over with I had to walk up to a house and ask an old man what his address was so I could tell dispatch what street I was on.

[michiganstud]

Yep, it happens. This year two of our officers were dispatched on a domestic.

They came to the house and were attacked by a dog in the yard. The result was a dead dog.

They were at the wrong address. There was an investigation to figure out if it was dispatch or the police that had it wrong.

[Retired Trooper]

Good thing about having a dog. No matter how deep in the woods you are he always finds his way back out. :D

[steelcityk9cop]

When I worked out near Philly you could not tell where the boarder was...... the advice from my FTO was, "When the street signs change color, turn around, you went too far."

[Group9]

We did a search warrant one night down in the far reaches of St. Bernard Parish in Lousiana, down where there was nothing but swamps and crushed oyster shell roads. We had the narcotics unit for the Parish go with us to show us where the house was and to help serving it. After midnight, we finished up and the St. Bernard guys asked if we needed to follow them out to get back to civilization.

We told them we were fine and they left. What followed was my entire Group lost in the swamp for over three hours as we kept calling each other over the radio. I had never seen so many white oyster shell roads that lead nowhere in my life. (This was back in the days when a cell phone was something you checked out from the tech department and turned back in when the deal was over, and we only two of them).

One unit finally found a service station that we all remembered going by coming in and he called us in. A lot of us were really getting low on gas by the time we got close enough to New Orleans to find gas stations.

And, we all agreed, no matter what else happened, that we would never tell the St. Bernard guys what happened. :D

[Old Trooper]

I've never gotten lost, but I can remember pursuing a drunk who driving in the wrong direction on an Interstate highway... I chased him for several miles before getting him stopped. It was in a very rural area, and since I was on the wrong side of the road, it was tough to figure out wherethehellIwas!!!

[P01IC3M4N]

it's almost impossible to get lost here.

[Group9]

I've been temporarily lost a few other times.

Me and three other guys were following a load vehicle down to Miami many years ago and we had already spent two nights in our cars so we were getting a little punch drunk anyway. The courier stopped at about 2 AM in a rest stop on east bound I-10 in the panhandle of Florida and went to sleep in his vehicle.

We left one guy at the stop with him to watch and the rest of us went across the interstate to sleep in the westbound rest area. About 45 minutes later, the agent who was watching started screaming into the radio that he had fallen asleep and our target was gone.

One of the other agents, who was ATF, and I both had 5.0 Mustangs at the time. Still half asleep, he and I tore out of the rest area and started heading down the Interstate at about 130 MPH looking for the load vehicle. We had gone about fifteen miles when the ATF agent radioed me as we went by an Interstate I-10 Westbound sign.

"Aren't we supposed to be going east?" :D

[tpd_six]

Never been really lost, once I chased a carload of kids a few miles out into the country and ended up in a field, all I could give was an approximate location and hope everyone else could see my lights to find me.

[mcsap]

With 80 square miles of territory and more than half rural, I made a few wrong turns while on 3rd shift and ended up outside of my jurisdiction. A lot of our boundaries are creeks, leftover from the 1700's when they couldn't draw a line.

[Rad Diver]

Never been really lost, once I chased a carload of kids a few miles out into the country and ended up in a field, all I could give was an approximate location and hope everyone else could see my lights to find me.

We have gps and maps showing directions, streets, aerial photos, houses, owner info, etc. in our cars.

I better not get lost! :D

[Tankus]

i got directionally challenged....for want of a better word....

got into a foot chase after a high speed pursuit and took off after three armed guys.....and got seperated from my off sider.....thankfully that day there were enough radios that we actually had one each...normally i dont carry one....even though i had worked the area for 9 years all the direction i could give to my back up was "im along the railway line, off XXX street...in the industrial area.....

i know how the lost guy felt....i had no cross streets, no buildings, no landmarks.....i didnt have a clue how to direct them in.....and i had three armed guys in there with me as well!!!!

it all ended just fine...two out of three caught....i actually fell on one.....and one very red faced tankus located!!