Manhunt in Saugus swamp goes high tech

SAUGUS – When a man reportedly covered in blood disappeared into the marsh Sunday, the Fire Department used a little technology to flush him out.Fire Chief James Blanchard said a call came in from Lynn around 5:30 p.m. Sunday of a man allegedly covered in blood walking down Route 107.According to police reports, the man had been kicked out of a bar in Lynn and headed down Western Avenue. When police approached him on Route 107 in Saugus he bolted into the marsh.”I guess he didn’t want help,” Blanchard said.Firefighters and the K-9 unit were called in to try to track him down, but in the end it was a camera that located the missing man.”The interesting thing is they used a thermal imaging camera to find the guy,” Blanchard said.Thermal imaging cameras are generally used to help locate people trapped in fires.”They allow us to see body heat,” he said. “They have been used on rare occasions to find missing people at night, but we’ve never had success with it.”Blanchard said when firefighters arrived, Capt. Chris Rizzo began methodically searching the marsh with the thermal imaging camera. The camera cannot see through things, but senses heat and projects an image based on that heat. Blanchard said had the marsh grass been thicker, the camera would have been useless. Instead, it picked up an image of the man who searchers subsequently found.”They found the poor guy in the water up to his shoulders and clinging to the bank,” he said. “Obviously he was in need of help.”Police Lt. Mike Annese called the man lucky.”He was very lucky, actually,” he added. “He definitely would have succumbed to the elements if the (firefighters) hadn’t found him. They saved his life is what they did.”Blanchard said he never did find out why the man was covered in blood, and Annese could shed no further light on the issue.”We don’t really know what happened,” Annese said. “He wasn’t formerly charged with anything. They did transport him to Mass General Hospital.”