STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine — Maine Marine Patrol officers from Ellsworth reported to Gondola Cove Road on Saturday afternoon after volunteers searching for a missing Maine Maritime Academy student spotted “an object of interest.”
The floating, “beige-toned” object was spotted from shore by volunteers and family members of David Breunig, 21, who has been the subject of an intense search since he was last seen in Orono the night of Feb. 26.
But Marine Patrol officers who arrived at about 5:30 p.m. were unable to locate the object, according to Richard Bowie, director of the Downeast Emergency Medicine Institute. Searchers will return to the Gondola Cove area again on Sunday to continue the search.
About 25 members of Breunig’s family joined volunteers south of Winterport on Saturday morning, where Bowie said a dog team that specialized in cadaver searches had tracked to a specific area.
Breunig left a party on Crosby Street in Orono around 11:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 26, and his phone last pinged a local cellphone tower at 12:05 a.m. Feb. 27, officials have said. He was last seen walking toward the train tracks near a railroad bridge that crosses the Stillwater River.
Earlier this month, divers searched the Penobscot River near where it connects with the Stillwater based on the possibility Breunig fell from the railroad bridge. He was last seen in that area. Ground and aerial searches have focused along stretches of both rivers with no sign of him.
A friend of Breunig’s, Jack K. Gilligan of Westbrook, subsequently posted on Facebook a warning to people not to walk across the bridge, indicating he suspected Breunig had fallen.
Bowie said searchers have previously discovered bodies in the Gondola Cove area, some that have drifted from farther upstream than Orono, approximately 30 miles away.
Just before 6:30 p.m. Saturday, marine patrol officers and searchers gathered at Sandy Point Beach Park to debrief before calling off the search for the day.
BDN writer Nok-Noi Ricker contributed to this report.