Missing hiker on Maui located through cell phone GPS
Emergency personnel located a missing hiker using her cell phone GPS, and safely escort her from a trail at Iao Valley State Park on Maui.
Maui firefighters said they were called to the Wailuku park to search for the missing hiker, 34, a visitor from Chicago, at 7:04 p.m. Monday.
Friends reported the woman was one of three females and a male, all from Chicago, who had hiked into the valley along a ridge trail that begins at the top of the visitor lookout. “On their way back down, one female fell behind. The male traced back to look for her but could not find her,” officials said in a press release. “He became lost himself but eventually found a stream and followed it back to the parking lot where he met up with the two other women.”
Emergency dispatchers contacted the woman on her cell phone and got a GPS fix on her location. A Kahului rescue crew assisting in the search located the woman about a mile above the visitor lookout at 8:30 p.m. She was uninjured and was walked safely out to the parking lot at 9:15 p.m.