A teenager went missing while kayaking with a group in the Goose Creek area of Charles County on Saturday evening, triggering a water rescue search that pulled in boats, personnel and a state police helicopter before the teen was found roughly 38 minutes later with no reported injuries.
According to The BayNet, the incident was reported at approximately 5 p.m. near Goose Bay Marina in Welcome, Maryland, after the group's kayaks returned but one teen did not. A 911 caller told dispatchers that the kayak had come back without the teenager, and that the group was generally only permitted to kayak in inland waters near the docks, the outlet reported.
Search Crews Scramble Across Goose Creek
Fire, rescue and emergency medical personnel responded and began searching surrounding waterways, per the same report. Responders were told the missing teen had last been seen farther into the creek and was wearing a dark green life jacket, details that helped shape the search area as crews worked to narrow down a location.
As the search expanded, emergency crews requested additional rescue boats and personnel, and also called in a Maryland State Police Aviation Command Trooper 2 helicopter to assist from the air, the report notes. The scale of the response reflected the uncertainty crews faced in locating a single kayaker who had drifted beyond where the rest of the group had stayed.
Teen Located Within the Hour, No Injuries Reported
At approximately 5:38 p.m., emergency personnel reported that the missing teenager had been located, according to the outlet's account. No injuries were reported following the discovery, and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources along with other responding agencies were notified that the teen had been found, after which the search operation was terminated.
The quick resolution stands in contrast to a separate rescue in September, when Tenth District Volunteer Fire Department's Fireboat 8 helped locate two kayakers who had gone missing on the Potomac River for roughly 30 hours before Charles County's marine resources were called in to assist, according to a news release from the department. In that case, a five-person crew found the pair waving from a duck blind near Craney Island. Neither kayaker appeared seriously hurt or in need of immediate treatment once brought aboard, the department said, according to the Southern Maryland Chronicle. Fireboat 8 then handed the kayakers off to Fairfax County Fireboat 420, which returned them to the Virginia shoreline where their trip had started.
The two incidents are not presented as part of a broader pattern, but both underscore how quickly a routine paddle can turn into a multi-agency search when a kayaker separates from a group. For the Charles County teen, the outcome was a fast one: a search that later included a helicopter closed within the hour, with the teenager found safe and the waterways near Goose Creek clear once again.
