The search for the body of a British hiker who disappeared in the Pyrenees in August is continuing with the help of locals and three associations, who want to give his family the chance of a proper burial and the opportunity to grieve properly.
Tom Doherty, a retired doctor from St Albans, Hertfordshire, sent his family a WhatsApp message saying “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t move” on August 6 and has not been heard from since, with his family unable to reach him seven minutes later when they tried to call.
Volunteers continue to sweep the area on foot where his phone was last located in what has been described as a “touching” show of solidarity.
“I was very touched by the effort put into the search for Mr Doherty,” Pierre-Alain Blanc, 57, president of the Occitanie branch of French missing persons group ARPD (Assistance et Recherche de Personnes Disparues), told The Connexion.
“It is not not just the associations but also the local residents and the gendarmes who continue to help in the search. I felt a great wave of solidarity towards our English friends.
“In my years of doing similar searches, I have rarely seen such a coordinated citizen, associative and institutional effort. It made me happy to see because his family deserves it a thousand times over.”
“The WhatsApp group is active every day with any new information that could potentially help or plans to coordinate the search.
The ARPD is working in conjunction with locals, the PGMH (gendarmerie), the association MANU which looks for missing people and the AICRS (Association Internationale de Chien de Recherche et de Sauvetage) which provided two search dogs to help with the search.
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Use of tracking dogs
Tom Doherty’s car was found near the Col d'Escots in Ariège.
His phone was difficult to locate and his WhatsApp messages were not sent in real time, making the search difficult.
A police search took place for six days but they were unable to locate him with his phone and very few signs of him were found, despite the use of helicopters and dogs.
Only tracking dogs were used in the police search for Mr Doherty and not air-scent or area-search dogs. They lost his trail after two kilometres.
Air-scent dogs are given an item to learn a person’s scent and then try to track them down by identifying this smell and following it, usually on a lead. Area-search dogs are given a large area to search, off the lead, for any human scent whatsoever, and are often used in earthquakes or avalanches.
“That is a shame as perhaps they would have found Mr Doherty,” said Mr Blanc. The area-search dogs did mark an area but no trace of the hiker was found.
Mr Doherty’s family then contacted local associations, including the ARPD, to help.
It was considered that perhaps he intentionally disappeared, but the circumstances of the disappearance make this theory extremely unlikely.
Eventually, an estimate of his location was found thanks to his family, technological work from the ARPD and work on the ground from local volunteers, who determined that the WhatsApp messages were not sent in real time.
The location was in a dangerous and hilly area with little cliffs and lots of rocks where a fall was likely, especially in the fog that had descended when Mr Doherty disappeared.
“He should not have been there, especially as he had vertigo. He may have got lost following herd tracks that he thought were walking paths,” said Mr Blanc.
Despite the use of drones flying over the area and lots of ground covered on foot by volunteers, no further signs of Mr Doherty have been found.
“He was dressed in black, grey and brown. He may have fallen in between two boulders and is therefore out of sight.
“Often in cases like this, people will crawl into little crevices or caves to try and take cover. Maybe he did so with his last bit of strength, which is why we cannot see him with the drones,” said Mr Blanc.
It is also possible that an animal took the phone, so it was no longer on Mr Doherty’s person, as has happened before.
On August 31, volunteers from the three associations, locals, the Doherty family and gendarmes took part in a large group search.
“The difficulty in these searches is that we do not want another disappeared person, so people have to be careful due to the terrain.”
However, once again, no traces were found. Searches will continue for the foreseeable future, ARPD President Blanc said.
“Sometimes, it can take months for any traces to be found in a smaller area than this so we remain optimistic. There are still lots of questions over his disappearance and we are still trying to pinpoint the location of the two photos he took.”
