On October 4, at 4:41 p.m., Suffield Police received a 911 call from a female who was lost in a large wooded area located behind 900 South Grand Street, Suffield. The female, age 60, sounded disoriented and she communicated, by cellular phone, that she was beginning to experience medical distress and difficulty breathing.
Suffield Police and Suffield Volunteer Ambulance (SVAA) arrived and promptly began searching for the woman’s vehicle which she stated was located near a body of water in the wooded area. Police and EMS located the woman’s vehicle in this wooded area and began a preliminary search starting at the vehicle.
A police K9 team from the Enfield Police Department, responding to a broadcast for canine assistance made of surrounding jurisdictions, arrived at 5:12 p.m. Utilizing an off-road “gator-style” vehicle of Suffield EMS and the police canine team tracking the woman’s scent from the vehicle, an extensive collaborative search of the heavily wooded area commenced.
Approximately twenty-four minutes after the search operation commenced, the female victim was successfully located by the Enfield Police K9 Team. She was provided emergency medical care and moved from the wooded area to an area where the EMS gator vehicle could then transport the victim by vehicle to an awaiting ambulance.
The victim was then transported to a local area hospital for non-life threatening injuries by the Suffield Volunteer Ambulance Association.
This quick rescue effort would not have been a success without the cooperative efforts and skill of the Suffield Volunteer Ambulance Association (SVAA) and the Enfield Police K9 Team of Officer Colantuono and K9 Nova, partnering with Suffield Police officers on scene.