Saturday, August 24, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Cpl. Martin Neveu with the Mackenzie detachment of the RCMP, Knut Herzog, search manager with Mackenzie SAR and Dale Parker, president of Mackenzie SAR, talk about the search for George Hazard-Benoit, a four-year-old Mackenzie boy who went missing while berry picking with his family near Lions Lake, south of Mackenzie on Saturday afternoon. He was found safe and uninjured Sunday evening and has been reunited with his parents.
Inside the search to find George Christine HINZMANN Citizen staff chinzmann@pgcitizen.ca
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ACKENZIE – It was a rainy and cold Saturday afternoon last weekend. Somewhere, in a forest filled with bears near this isolated community north of Prince George, there was a lost boy. “At about 1:42 p.m. – I was on days off – and I received a call from one of my constables, Jeff Ludovici, notifying me of a missing four-year-old in the area of Lions Lake,” RCMP Cpl. Martin Neveu said. “He explained that there had been over an hour time delay and gave me the circumstances that mom and a friend had taken the boy berry picking. When they had arrived on site the boy was sleeping in the van. She laid him on the floor and they moved to the berry patch, which was approximately 30 feet away. A few minutes later, they went back to check on him and the door was open and the boy was gone.” Tykao Hazard had searched for her son George with her friend with no success before calling the police. Neveu turned on his police radio and started monitoring the investigation from home, hearing the Police Dog Service call was already put out, along with Air Services and Search and Rescue was in the process of being activated to locate George. As he continued to monitor the situation, he was given a description of the area that Neveu is familiar with because that’s where he often goes fishing. Lions Lake is about 18 kilometres from the Mackenzie Junction. It’s a small forestry service road that leads to a small lake. CN was notified because the location was right beside the track and information was shared on local logging truck channels. Sgt. John Grierson, the detachment commander, was away during the start of the investigation. Neveu called to tell him about the lost boy. The initial attempts to search for George were hindered because the two constables
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George Hazard-Benoit, 4, left, plays with step-brother Tobias, 5, at home. George was lost in the forest for about 32 hours and was found Sunday not much worse for wear. He was released from hospital on Tuesday. at the site were instructed by the Police Dog Services personnel not to contaminate what little tracks a four-year-old could make through the bush. “So it was search in a certain pattern, keep track of where you’ve been so that the dog could be more successful,” Neveu said. Two more officers were deployed to attend the scene but had to be redeployed to a domestic dispute. After that situation was resolved, they hauled out the two RCMP ATVs. That’s when Neveu went to the site and established the Search and Rescue (SAR) command post at the Lions Lake Provincial Park campsite about one kilometre from where George was last seen, so not to con-
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taminate the scene. “In my mind and heart at this time there are two possibilities,” Neveu said. “There is a possibility that this is legitimate that the boy got out of the van and he’s now out in the wilderness in these rainy conditions – he’s a four year old with no exposure to wilderness – so that is a grave concern and there’s also the side that’s always going to be in the back of our minds – is there another angle to this? Is it possible that there could be a parental abduction, or anything like that – is there any sign of anything suspicious?” To consider those options is just part of police training, said Grierson. “You don’t want to have tunnel vision
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about this,” he said. “The overwhelming concern is the safety of the child but we have to be cognizant of any other possibilities. There’s always a concurrent investigation as well as the search. And then you cross your fingers and toes.” When Neveu went to the site, Knut Herzog, the Mackenzie SAR manager, was already on the scene and preparing his team, establishing search patterns to ensure they would conduct an effective search. Neveu said when he talked to George’s mom, she said she believed she could hear George calling her a few times shortly after he went into the bush. — see ‘THERE WAS ALREADY, page 2
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