washingtonian (july 2018), copyright © 2018
by robert nelson, washingtonian.com.except white rock and scattered trees,
and after about 20 minutes in the air,
the battery slipped below 25 percent.
They’d have to land the device and
switch batteries if they didn’t get a
bead on the lost man pretty soon.
The drone flew up and over a ridge-
line capped by tall oak and pine trees,
only about a half mile away. A neon-
orange dot moved below. Zooming the
camera in, the image became clear:
The orange dot was a hunter’s cap.
“I think we have him!” Devaney
shouted.
Down below, Bill began walking
more briskly—the terrain was finally
familiar, and he was sure he was less
than a mile from the Jeep. He saw alarge black animal bounding toward
him out of the corner of his eye—a
bear, maybe? He had seen some scat.
But before he could reach for his gun,
he realized it was a dog.
“Bill!” a voice called. “William! Bill
McDonnell!”
“I’m up here,” he yelled back.
Damn trackers had beaten him af-
ter all.I
t’s not that he wasn’t thankful
for the “neat little contraption”
that had helped rescue him, or
for the young people who’d traipsed
through the cold forest in search of
an old-timer. It was more that he was
embarrassed, and frustrated with all
the fuss. Even the local news channels
had shown up.
“Half hour more daylight and I
would have been fine,” he told the
rescuers.
The next day, Bill Jr. was tasked
with sitting his dad down and having
“the talk.” “I said, ‘The whole fam-
ily was extremely scared, especially
Mom,’” Bill Jr. recalls. “‘You can’t go
out alone anymore.’”
Bill agreed to swear he wouldn’t go
out hunting or hiking alone again.
But a week later, during a short
hike—with company—he waffled a
bit. “I need to keep that promise,”
he said. “But the idea of it drives me
crazy. I love walking around in these
woods alone.”“Half hour more daylight and I would
have been fine,” Bill told the rescuers
when he emerged from the woods.rd.com 105co
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Drama in Real Life