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RALEIGH,
N.C. (Oct. 20, 2005) – Bruce Roberts spotted a dim light.
Now he’s a shining light.
The incident occurred in October 2004. Roberts, who helps ground officers track night hunters and other poachers, was returning from a mission that had been cancelled because of bad weather. High winds, rain and fog make flying a two-seat airplane in the mountains treacherous. “You’re visually impaired,” the 15-year veteran officer explained. “You lose your orientation to the ground. And although you’re relying on instruments, in between the hills you really have to watch where you’re going.” Winging into the Morganton airport, Roberts overheard radio traffic about a 74-year-old hunter who had not returned to camp in the Linville Gorge Wilderness by nightfall. Roberts radioed his fellow wildlife officers that he was nearby, although he did not know how long he could remain in the air because of deteriorating weather and diminishing visibility. Time was critical. The hunter, Mason Butler of Paw Creek, had a history of heart trouble and diabetes. As rainfall became steadier and temperatures dipped into the 40s, hypothermia became an increasing threat. After about an hour, Roberts, using night-vision equipment, detected a faint light on the eastern slope of Table Rock Mountain. He relayed the position to ground officers before winds and fog drove him away. He returned to the area several times over the next hour, pinpointing the weak light and directing rescuers ever closer to the light’s source. Officers found Butler and led him to a waiting ambulance just as a steady downpour began that would persist through the night. Butler, exhausted from wandering for hours, had given up and lain down in a bed of leaves before hearing the buzz of the Piper Supercub. As the plane flew overhead intermittently, he shined his Mini-Maglite, a small flashlight powered by two AA batteries, toward the sound, wondering each time whether the pilot had seen the signal. At last, two powerful flashlights swept through the trees toward him. “I’ve never been so happy to see people in all my life,” Butler told wildlife officers afterwards. Wildlife Capt. Ted Brothers, who nominated Roberts for the State Employees’ Award, said his officer, having braved adverse weather and mountain darkness, is a hero even if “we will never know if his actions saved the life of Mason Butler.” Butler himself has no doubt. “I think he saved my life. I don’t think I could have made it through the night,” he said. Roberts lives in
Lenoir with his wife, Yvonne, and two daughters.
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