TOWNSHIP 5 RANGE 13, Maine — A teenage camper from Florida who was taken to the hospital after a close call with lightning Monday afternoon was back at camp on Tuesday.
The 16-year-old girl from Boca Raton whose name was withheld because of her age, was on a canoe trip organized by Darrow Wilderness Trip Camps to this remote wilderness area west of Baxter State Park when a severe thunder and lightning storm kicked up about 2 p.m., Deborah Turcotte, spokeswoman for the Maine De-partment of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said Tuesday.
At the time, the group was on the Mud Pond Carry trail, which runs from Umbazooksus Lake to Mud Pond, a muddy canoe portage made famous in Henry David Thoreau’s “In the Maine Woods.”
According to Turcotte, the girl told an adult leader with the group that water that had accumulated on the trail “exploded in front of her and she felt a shock and it caused numbness and tingling in her legs and lower back and up her spine.”
The girl was taken back to a campsite the group had put up along the carry trail and an adult leader and a camper hiked back to the group’s main campsite, Umbazooksus Stream West Campsite at Chesuncook Lake, to get help. There, the two borrowed a cell phone, managed to get a signal, and called the camp director, Turcotte said.
“The camp director told them to call an ambulance and evacuate her,” Turcotte said.
Warden Bob Johansen, who received the call to go get the girl about 8 p.m., drove by pickup to the group’s main campsite and then to the Mud Pond Carry trail, where he picked her up, Turcotte said.
The warden then drove the girl to the parking area at Chamberlain Lake, where an ambulance took her to a local hospital for evaluation. Turcotte said the girl still was experiencing numbness Monday night.
Turcotte said that Johansen saw the girl Tuesday and reported that she was “in good spirits” and appeared to be in good physical condition.