ORONO, Maine — Dozens of law enforcement personnel and volunteers on Monday spent a second day searching for a Maine Maritime Academy student who was last seen in Orono on Friday night.
Searchers combed parts of Orono and along the Penobscot River at least as far as Bangor in an effort to find David Breunig, 21, of Westbrook, who disappeared after leaving a residence in the Crosby Street neighborhood around 11:30 p.m. Friday.
“Today we’re focusing on any wooded areas where someone could be missing or unresponsive anyplace within approximately 1.5 miles of the area he was last seen,” Lt. Dan Scott of the Maine Warden Service said at an 11 a.m. news conference held behind the Orono Public Safety building. “Our K-9 units are searching on the banks of the Penobscot all the way down to Bangor. If it was a situation where he went into the river, he could be transported quite some distance. We’re also searching north [of where he was last seen].”
Around 60 searchers were on foot scouring the land and using boats to search waterways. There were two aircraft also looking for signs of Breunig.
Included among the ground searchers were Maine Search and Rescue personnel and six teams with dogs.
“We don’t need additional search volunteers at this time,” said Scott, who asked Orono residents to look in their backyards and outbuildings for any sign of the missing man.
Searchers gathered behind the public safety building on Main Street early Monday to organize their efforts, which appeared to be focused along the banks of the Stillwater and Penobscot rivers.
Orono police Chief Josh Ewing said Sunday that police believe Breunig last was seen in the area of North Main Avenue, between Hill and Pond streets.
“They pinged the phone and it was within 1.8 miles of the tower,” Game Warden Shannon Fish told a group of searchers from Lincoln County just before they started to look for Breunig on Monday.
The last time contact was made with Breunig’s phone was at about 12:05 a.m. Saturday, Fish said.
Attempts to reach the missing student on his cellphone were not successful, Ewing said Sunday.
The Hancock County Sheriff’s Office opened a missing person’s investigation on Breunig around 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
Breunig is described as 6-foot-4, with a slim, athletic build, and weighs approximately 225 pounds. He has blue eyes and short, light-brown hair. He was wearing a white shirt, dark bluejeans and brown Timberland boots when he was last seen, according to the statement from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.
Game wardens reviewed “objects of interest” identified on aerial images brought forward by Down East Emergency Medicine Institute, a local search-and-rescue group, on Sunday but “it turned out to be nothing,” Fish said.
Friends and family arrived in Orono to wait and assist, if needed, Ewing said.
“He’s a young guy, physically fit. It’s Day Two, it’s not a stretch [that he might be found alive],” Scott said Monday.
The efforts have yet to produce any hint about what might have happened, Scott said.
“We haven’t found anything yet,” he said. “We’re hoping to find a clue to tell us where he’s at.”
Meanwhile, the Maine Maritime Academy community planned to gather at 6:30 p.m. on Monday for a candlelight vigil, spokesman Jennifer DeJoy said.
The search was suspended for the day at dusk and is expected to resume early Tuesday morning.
Watch bangordailynews.com for updates.