Search for Rusagonis children raises concerns

The high number of volunteers who turned out on Friday evening to help locate three missing children actually may have hindered searchers, according to one official.

About 300 hundred people converged on a wooded area in Rusagonis last Friday evening to look for Jayden, 9, Aurora, 8, and Skylar, 4, who were lost in the woods for seven hours.

An official with a ground search and rescue team in Fredericton says that large crowd complicated the search.

"So many people came to help that police and even some trained searchers had to direct traffic instead of looking for the kids," said Stephen Moore of the York-Sunbury Ground Searchand Rescue.

"The biggest problem we had was the fact that we had three young children there. And typically when children yell, they don't yell as loud as an adult."

Many of the people who rushed to help with the search also brought all-terrain vehicles with them, another hindrance to searchers.

"Because of all the noise from ATVs and other people yelling, it was very difficult to get a response or to hear a response from the lost people," Moore said.

Allowing experts work

"A lot of people answered the call, which was nice to see," said Jennifer Turnbull, the mother of the three children.

But Turnbull said people need to let the experts organize the search.

"I know a lot of people were mad that they couldn't go in. But they didn't understand that we didn't want any more people lost and I wouldn't have wanted any more people lost looking for my kids with the dense woods," said Turnbull.

"There are steps that they take and why it's done."

The children were found near midnight, huddled together in a fort they had built for themselves out of branches and ferns.

They had listened for hours to the searchers calling their names, but they couldn't make themselves heard in return.

The search team was pleased to get so much help. But they say people who want to pitch in have to be properly equipped with bush pants, hiking boots and safety glasses.

But most of all, says Moore, they have to be patient and wait to be deployed by the trained searchers.