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Missing Marquette County teen found by DNR officers in frozen swamp

WEST BRANCH TOWNSHIP, MI— DNR conservation officers found a runaway 14-year-old boy in a frozen swamp in Marquette County last week.

The boy was reported missing Tuesday around 4:25 p.m. from County Road 545 North in West Branch Township.

Two officers started tracking a set of footprints and encountered a pedestrian who said they’d seen the teen walking east on Maplewood Road three hours earlier. The footprints continued for a mile, then dead-ended in swampland surrounding Foster Creek.

At 6:10 p.m., the officers found the boy sitting on a snowbank along the creek. He was wearing only a shirt and pajama pants. He had removed his wet shoes and socks after he fell in the creek and his jacket was wrapped around his feet to keep them warm.

One of the officers gave the teen his wool gloves to put on his feet. They put his shoes back on and walked about 275 yards to where an ambulance met them on Foster Creek Drive.

The teen was taken to the hospital and treated for cold exposure.

Nicole was born near Detroit but has lived in the U.P. most of her life. She graduated from Marquette Senior High School and attended Michigan State and Northern Michigan Universities, graduating from NMU in 1993 with a degree in English.