MEXICO, Maine — The Maine Warden Service said Tuesday that two teenage boys last seen leaving Mexico on a snowmobile Monday night have been found alive after spending the night lost in the woods of western Maine.
The pair used gasoline found in a go-cart to light a fire and stay warm during the frigid night.
Ty Howard-Gotto and Jonah May, both 15, left Mexico at about 7:30 p.m. Monday on a snowmobile headed to a camp owned by Howard-Gotto’s grandfather, Phil Howard, on South Arm Road in Andover, according to a release from Cpl. John MacDonald of the Maine Warden Service.
When the boys failed to arrive at the camp, Howard-Gotto’s family called for help. In subzero temperatures, game wardens, members of snowmobile clubs and others began searching for the teens, according to MacDonald.
After being alerted that the boys had gone missing on the roughly 20-mile trip, wardens began searching at about 11:45 p.m. Monday. Warden Josh Smith told the Sun Journal that he and wardens Tony Gray and Brock Clukey drove to the area to begin a hasty search. Smith said the temperature was 26 below zero.
“I was a human popsicle,” Smith said.
Smith said wardens had a general idea where the teens might have gone, based on tips from people who had seen them en route. However, searchers did fear that the snowmobile might have fallen through thin ice.
Gotto, who was driving the 2007 Arctic Cat Firecat snowmobile, apparently missed a turn heading to his grandfather’s camp in Andover and crossed Devil’s Den Road, continuing west toward the Sawyer Notch area on the South Sawyer Trail, which is not currently maintained.
The boys, who both live in Rhode Island, said their snowmobile got stuck in deep snow halfway between Devil’s Den Road and Black Cat Road, below Richardson Lake. Neither had a cellphone, but both had received survival skills training, which they used to weather the frigid night.
The boys tried unsuccessfully to start a fire by soaking a sock in gasoline. They then walked a considerable distance to Black Cat Road and down to the shore of Richardson Lake, where they found a shed and a go-cart with fresh gas, according to the warden service. They made a fire using that gas and warmed up, then slept in the go-cart for the rest of the night.
Early Tuesday morning, the teens walked across the south end of Richardson Lake to South Arm Road, where they were picked up by a passerby at about 10 a.m. Tuesday. The driver took them to Howard’s camp.
Wardens reported the teens were hungry and with no injuries or signs of hypothermia, despite temperatures near 10 degrees below zero overnight.
Wardens also told the Sun Journal it’s not uncommon for teens to travel by snowmobile without adult supervision in western Maine.