WATERVILLE – As police searched Tuesday for a 16-year-old girl who had run away from a Colby College running camp, the teen was meanwhile hitchhiking more than 200 miles to her home in Worcester, Mass.

Waterville Police Deputy Chief Charles Rumsey said the girl, who left the 28th annual Colby College cross country camp wearing a T-shirt and running shorts and not carrying a cellphone or any money, was extremely lucky.

“She was playing Russian roulette,” Rumsey said. “It was incredibly dangerous.”

On the third day of the five-day camp, Rumsey said the teen reportedly told fellow campers that she was going to hitchhike home and, at some point Tuesday morning, left the campus.

Pete S. Chenevert, Colby director of security, said camp staff called the girl’s parents, who were on Islesboro, an island off the coast of Lincolnville, to notify them that their daughter was missing. Police did not release the name of the girl because of her age.

Chenevert said the teen had previously told her parents that she wanted to leave running camp and return home before joining them on Islesboro.

Chenevert said the girl called her parents, who were en route from Islesboro to Waterville, Tuesday night and told them that she was in Worcester.