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Man Rescued From Westboro Swamp Was Using GPS To Search For Falcon

WESTBORO (CBS) - Bill Johnston's body and maybe his ego are a little bruised one day after he was rescued from a frozen swamp in Westboro. "I got a few aches and pains today," he laughed.

Johnston had wandered into Cedar Swamp Thursday afternoon, searching for his falcon. You see, Bill is a falconer, one of only about 50 in the state by his estimate. "It's my passion," he said.

Bill Johnston
Bill Johnston holding a falcon (WBZ-TV)

Falconry has been around for thousands of years. It's the art of taking a wild bird of prey and training it to hunt and then return. Well, in this case, Johnston's prized Gyrfalcon Fiona didn't return after pursuing a duck. He said, "she took off after that duck, I dunno, a couple miles at least."

Fiona was fitted with a GPS tracker so Bill could follow her movements. Using his iPhone app, he followed her flight path to the area of Cedar Swamp.

Falcon GPS
Bill Johnston tracks his falcon, Fiona, on a smartphone GPS app (WBZ-TV)

As Johnston was walking out to an area where Fiona may have been, he broke through some thin ice, and found himself up to his waist in freezing water and mud. "Hypothermia sets in you can't move," he said, "you just sink, unless somebody comes and gets you."

His first reaction was to call 9-1-1. Luckily his cell phone didn't get wet, but, it was nearly dead. "I'm tracking the falcon with the iPhone and it takes a lot of the battery," he explained. He had just enough battery to call for help. "One percent left on my phone when I called 9-1-1."

Missing falcon
Fiona, Bill Johnston's missing falcon (Image credit Bill Johnston)

It took more than two hours to get him free, but he made it out OK. He was checked out for hypothermia and released.

Johnston is grateful for the rescuers who saved his life in the frigid swamp. "The Westboro Fire Department people are just phenomenal," he said.

Johnston raised the 14-year-old bird from when it was only a chick.

Thankfully, the Westboro Fire Department announced Saturday afternoon that they had recovered the $20,000 bird. They said she was injured and looked like was she had been attacked. She was taken to a Tufts University center in Grafton.

Firefighter Mark Boyer took it upon himself to track down the bird in his free time, according to a tweet by the department.

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