Crime & Safety
Man Saved from Swamp by Lawrence Police Officers
The 53-year-old man used his cell phone to call for help after getting stuck up to his waist in mud in the woods behind the Avalon Run apartment complex.
Two Lawrence Township police officers trekked through about a half-mile’s worth of woods and swamp Tuesday night (Sept. 27) to rescue a man who, at one point, was stuck up to his waist in muck.
The 53-year-old man had ventured out along a path into the wooded area adjacent to the Avalon Run apartment complex located off Grovers Mill Road behind Quaker Bridge Mall, according to Sgt. Joseph Caloiaro.
At some point during his walk, the man wandered away from the path and became “stuck” in a thicket in a swampy area, Caloiaro said. The man had a cell phone with him and called his fiancé for help. She, in turn, called police about 9 p.m.
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Maintaining contact with the man via his cell phone, officers attempted several things in the hope of narrowing down his position within the large wooded area that is bordered by Grovers Mill Road, Route 1, Interstate 295, Lawrence Station Road and Quakerbridge Road.
Officers Erini Papafilipakis, Richard Laird III and Andres Mejia and Detective Todd Caruso shined lights into the woods from multiple locations and asked the man if he could see any of them. They called out to him and sounded their police car sirens from different areas and asked him which sounded closer.
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Papafilipakis and Laird, having located the path the man had originally followed, then went into the dark woods and asked the man to call to them every 15 seconds or so. They eventually picked up the sound of his voice and followed it until they found him bogged down in the swampy area.
In mud up to their knees, the officers were able to use their flashlights to guide the man out of the mud and along a safe route through the swamp to where he was able to meet up with them.
Wet and muddy but uninjured, the man was escorted by the officers back along the path and out of the woods, where he was reunited with his fiancé about 10:10 p.m.
“They really went the distance,” Caloiaro said of Papafilipakis and Laird, who got more than just a little bit muddy themselves during the rescue.
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