Published: September 06, 2008 01:14 am      

WILSON: Missing woman is found alive in woods near home

WILSON — An elderly woman who disappeared for nearly two days was found safe and alive in the woods about a mile from her home Friday.

Lucille Schurr, 83, disappeared from her Cambria-Wilson Road home sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

She was found in the woods Friday evening by her brother, a Vietnam veteran who had joined the search only 20 minutes before.

Schurr, who is in good condition, is now at Erie County Medical Center, recovering from her two-day ordeal.

Hundreds of volunteers and officers from several local agencies spent most of Thursday and all of Friday searching for Schurr.

At a petite 5 feet tall, Schurr has hearing and sight problems and suffers from dementia.

The family had called the sheriff’s department to report Schurr missing about 12:30 p.m. Thursday, after no one had spoken to her since 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Chief Deputy James Voutour said Schurr had locked the house and taken her keys with her, but had left her purse behind.

Family members thought she may have gone looking for her cat.

The search expanded to include the county’s Search and Rescue Team, made up of volunteer firefighters from throughout the county.

The ground search was suspended about 9 p.m. Thursday and resumed Friday morning, with teams of volunteers from several agencies.

Through the thick trees and brush, searchers had a difficult task.

“We knew if we didn’t trip over her, we weren’t going to find her,” said South Wilson Fire Capt. Alex Schotz.

Sister found

Several members of Schurr’s family were part of the search, both on foot and on ATVs.

Her youngest brother, 60-year-old Mike Duboc, a Vietnam veteran who lives on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation, arrived just after 5 p.m.

“Nobody was finding her, so I had to come down,” Duboc said. “I asked where she’d usually go, and they said out back. So I started walking around out there.”

Joe Gaines, a neighbor who had been helping with the search since 10 a.m., followed Duboc into the woods.

About 20 minutes later, Duboc spotted what looked like a path made by someone crawling through the brush.

“You could tell it was a human crawling in the foliage, and not a deer or a dog,” he said.

Seconds later, he came across Schurr, sitting on the ground.

“She was sitting like she was looking for her glasses,” he said. “I asked her if she was OK and if she knew who I am. She looked at me and she said, ‘Yeah, you’re Mike.’ ”

Duboc said he asked Schurr what her phone number was, and she told him.

Meanwhile, back at the command center, rescuers were preparing to stop the search for the night.

”We were going to strategically plan out the last search of the night before nightfall,” said Russell Jackman, Wilson Fire Company’s third assistant chief.

Schurr’s daughter, Yvonne Peloquin, was at her mother’s house preparing for another night without any news.

Then, the phone rang — it was Duboc, calling from the woods on his cell phone.

“He called me and he goes, ‘I have your mother on the phone, you want to talk to her?’ ” Peloquin said, laughing. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s a wacko.’ ”

Duboc, Gaines and Schurr waited in the woods until rescuers got to their location.

The foliage was so thick, rescuers had to “peel apart the woods” to get to them, Jackman said.

Schurr was cold, hungry and thirsty, and was having trouble lifting her head, Duboc said.

“She wouldn’t have lasted too much longer,” Duboc said.

He gave her water and tried to warm her up, and she slowly became more talkative.

Gaines said it was a relief for everyone that Schurr was found safely.

“You hope for a good outcome, but the more you do it, as the day was going on, you want the best out of it, but you start thinking the worst,” he said. “She’s a real tough lady to go through what she went through, I’ll tell you that.”

Efforts rewarded

Rescuers brought Schurr out of the woods about 6:30 p.m., riding in the back of a Wilson Fire Company ATV, already hooked up to an IV and oxygen.

Several family members surrounded her as she was placed on a stretcher and into a waiting ambulance. She was then taken to ECMC by Mercy Flight.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Patrick Needle was back in the woods where she was found. He said she was conscious and alert, but dehydrated, with many bug bites.

“She’d been crawling all night,” Needle said, calling her a “strong woman.”

Jackman said Schurr had pain in her arms and in her right leg. Her temperature was low, and she was sore and tired, he said.

After Schurr was taken to ECMC, the volunteers gathered at nearby South Wilson Fire Hall for dinner.

South Wilson Chief John Thilk said the happy ending to Schurr’s story was “a pleasant surprise.”

James Volkosh, the county’s emergency services coordinator, said they’d brought in a mental health professional to assist in case a firefighter or volunteer needed counseling.

“We were not prepared for what came completely out of the blue towards the end of our search,” he said. “But, of course, we were happy to call back the counselor and tell the counselor, ‘You can have dinner and leave.’ ”

Between Thursday and Friday, the number of volunteers who turned out to help was in the hundreds, Volkosh said.

Voutour praised all the volunteers for their hard work.

“It was their efforts and their search coordination that put this together,” he said. “Although it may have not been a firefighter that found her, it was, I believe, a total effort of everybody put together today that concluded with this happy ending.”

Contact reporter April Amadon at 439-9222, ext. 6251.