A teenager from Massachusetts who disappeared during a camping expedition on Hermit Island in Phippsburg was found alive and well by a search party late Tuesday night.

Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry said the 17-year-old boy, who lives in Hadley, Massachusetts, was reported missing from the Hermit Island Campground around 6:38 p.m.

The boy, a member of a school group that had been staying on the island as part of a marine biology program, was last seen at 2:30 p.m.

Sheriff’s deputies and members of the Phippsburg Fire Department, the Maine Warden Service and the Maine Marine Patrol searched the island. At 8:49 p.m., a dog from the sheriff’s department found the boy in an area several hundred yards from his campsite. He was transported by ambulance to Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick as a precaution.

“With cooling temperatures his safety would have become an issue,” Merry said in a prepared statement.


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