Champion fire chief finds missing man

By Ed Runyan

It is the third time the Child Abduction Response Team has assisted in finding a lost person.

LORDSTOWN — When an 81-year-old retired logger with onset dementia was found at 1:30 a.m. Monday, more than 9 hours after his family reported him missing, he told his grandson he “knew where he was going” and was fine.The man, George Parks, was taken to a local hospital to be checked out for hypothermia but otherwise seemed to be OK, said Brent Milhoan, Lordstown’s police chief.

The search late Sunday in a swampy, hilly area of Lordstown behind Parks’ home on Highland Avenue Southwest near Salt Springs Road involved nearly 200 searchers at one point, as the county’s Child Abduction Response Team mobilized.

Champion Fire Chief John Hickey located Parks as the octogenarian walked north along state Route 45 near Ohio Commerce Center, about a mile west of Parks’ home.

Hickey was part of a second wave of searchers who responded after many of the first wave of searchers went home around 11 p.m.

Hickey spotted Parks as he drove south along Route 45 on his way to the Lordstown Village Hall, which served as the command post for the search. At the time, between 75 and 100 searchers were still looking.

Milhoan and one of the leaders of the CART team said a hunter spotted Parks in the woods behind his house about 3 p.m., so the search fanned out about 1 1‚Ñ2 miles from there.

Milhoan said he doesn’t know why the search didn’t find Parks sooner, because Parks described the areas where he walked, and that area was within the search area. He was found about a mile from his home.

The search was hampered by the terrain, as well as foggy conditions that limited visibility, the chief added.

Members of nearly every Trumbull County fire department participated in the search, Milhoan said. By 11 p.m., however, many searchers were encouraged to return home to rest so that another search could be undertaken Monday morning.

But concerns for Parks’ safety caused about 75 to 100 searchers to keep up the effort past 11 p.m., when search leaders notified area fire departments to second a second wave of searchers, if possible.

“There were thoughts that this may not end the way we wanted it to,” Milhoan said.

In addition to county searchers, police officers from Summit and Cuyahoga counties assisted, as well as officers from western Pennsylvania.

More than 20 police dogs were used, as well as thermal imaging equipment that improves visibility at night.

This was the third time Parks had gone missing, family members said. The man, who has lived in Lordstown with his grandson less than two years, was found at a home on York Street in Warren one other time he went missing, Milhoan said. The third time happened in Cleveland.

It is the third time the CART team, formed about a year ago, has been mobilized. It is the first time it was used to find a senior citizen. In all three cases, the lost individual was found, Milhoan said.

The team found a missing 12-year-old boy in Lake Milton on June 29, 2008. It also assisted in finding an 18-year-old man with autism in June.

runyan@vindy.com