It’s not unusual in a small town like Dresden to see young people walking along the road after school. Maybe they’re headed home or going to meet a friend. So, as 12-year-old Micah Thomas walked for miles last Wednesday afternoon, motorists who passed him had no way to know the coming cold, snowy night would find him in trouble, along the Eastern River.

According to grandfather Rob Morris and authorities involved in the successful search for Thomas, something that happened on the school bus had upset the Hall-Dale Middle School student.

Maine Warden’s Service Lieutenant Kevin Adam, who led the search, would not elaborate on the bus incident. “To you or me, it would be minor,” he said. However, he acknowledged, it might not be, to a 12-year-old boy.

“He needed some cooling-off time,” Adam told reporters Thursday morning.

Nancy Call said she and husband Andrew were arriving home Wednesday afternoon, when Thomas was walking past their Blinn Hill Road driveway, in the direction of East Pittston Road.

  “The look he gave me, I felt as a mother,” Call said in an interview Friday. However, she didn’t know Thomas, and the two did not speak as he continued walking.

Call recognized him late Wednesday night, in a photograph released to the news media. She said she then called the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, and unlocked the cemetery near her home, so authorities could search it.

  Another local woman said her husband saw a boy walking near East Pittston Road around the same time Wednesday afternoon. She spoke briefly with a Wiscasset Newspaper reporter Thursday morning, just after speaking with a sheriff’s deputy on her way to work. Deputies were speaking with motorists at the Blinn Hill Road-East Pittston Road intersection.

  The woman said her husband did not know if the boy was Thomas.

Overnight, search dogs picked up a human scent, between the river and East Pittston Road, Adam said. The dogs’ handlers also saw footprints there. Those clues, and reported sightings, gave searchers a focus.

Meanwhile, the Computer Crimes Division of the Maine State Police was examining Thomas’ computer for any clues that might yield, Adam said.

There were no signs of foul play. Early Thursday, Adam was describing the boy’s disappearance as “a mystery.” He had no money or cell phone with him, the warden said. “For some reason, he hasn’t popped out yet.”

Into Thursday afternoon, members of local, county and state agencies continued canvassing the area by land, water and air. Among them were two Maine Forest Service (MFS) rangers in a helicopter. They were using a global positioning system (GPS) to track where they had already searched, according to an MFS press release issued at midday.

A Maine Marine Patrol team rescued Thomas around 2 p.m. Thursday, Adam said. The boy had been missing about 23 hours since getting off the bus, at Eagle Lodge Lane.

A Warden’s Service press release Thursday night recounted the search and its conclusion: “The search began on the east side of the Eastern River but ended on the west shore after Thomas crossed the river overnight. Thomas told authorities he did not hear searchers or airplanes until this morning when he began hollering. At approximately 2 p.m. this afternoon, a civilian searcher who lives in the area heard Micah hollering and came to his aid. He was found without his boots and showing signs of hypothermia. A nearby Maine Marine Patrol boat responded and brought Micah on board.”

Morris got to see his wet, but alert grandson, after the boat landed, near Alexander Road. “He smiled at me with his eyes,” the West Bath man said. Morris was grateful to everyone who looked for Thomas. Speaking to reporters, he paused to find the words.

“Thank you is not enough,” he said. “There’s been such a tremendous outpouring of support … it’s been great.”

Morris said he, Thomas’ parents and the rest of the family had gone from “worried sick” to “elated.”

His grandson’s choice the previous afternoon to keep walking further from home “may have not been a good decision,” Morris said. Later, however, “apparently he did make a good decision and hunkered down for the night.”

“We had some faith that he was going to make a good decision,” Morris said. “He likes being outside. That probably served him well last night.”

Back at Pownalborough Hall minutes earlier, Lieutenant Adam was “very ecstatic” over the search’s outcome. “I was extremely concerned, the longer it went on…,” he told a thick half-circle of representatives of news outlets from Portland to Bangor.

Word that the boy may have been found alive broke with some chaos. Adam, the incident commander, had just opened a 2 p.m. news briefing in the parking lot the hall shares with the fire station.

Inside the station, dozens of people were waiting for instructions to join or rejoin the search. They included distant relatives and old friends of the boy’s family; strangers, who wanted to help after seeing news reports; Lincoln County Search and Rescue members; firefighters from Dresden, Alna, Bristol and other towns; Maine Search and Rescue Dogs members; the Maine Search and Rescue Association; and representatives of the Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency.

Nearly 20 staff members from the Chewonki Foundation in Wiscasset came to volunteer. “This seemed like the most important thing to do today,” the foundation’s enrichment coordinator, Addie Liddic, said.

When the afternoon news briefing began, Adam had no major new developments to share with reporters: The search was expanding north and south of the spot where the scent and prints were found, he said.  Moments later, another warden approached and spoke briefly to Adam. The lieutenant then excused himself.

As the media waited, a local man – who had told the Wiscasset Newspaper his son knows Thomas – began shouting outside the fire station. The boy had been found, he said. Calls from people around him, asking him to stop, covered his other remarks. However, that initial declaration sent reporters and photographers hurrying into the station.

Inside, Dresden firefighters said they were not sure if what the man said was true.

In another few minutes, Adam emerged from the hall next door and rejoined the media in the parking lot.

“He’s alive. He’s being treated…he’s coming back down in a boat,” Adam said of Thomas.

At Thomas’ school in Farmingdale, students learned the good news before Principal Steven Lavoie did. “They’re online all the time,” Lavoie explained. “We didn’t even have to announce it.”

Earlier in the school day, the Hall-Dale staff had made no formal statements to students about their missing classmate. “It’s fairly common knowledge,” the principal observed at the time, as the search continued. The school made its entire guidance staff available for any students needing to talk with someone about it.

Reached again later, after Thomas’ rescue, Lavoie said: “We’re all extraordinarily happy…that he’s OK.”