Field Notes
About 11:30 p.m. on June 21, a Government Canyon State Park police officer received a missing persons call from the San Antonio Police Department. It seems the missing person called 911 from somewhere in the park reporting an animal had been following and growling at her, so she had taken refuge by climbing a tree.
The park police officer was able to make contact on her cell phone to reassure her help was on the way. She urged him to please hurry because an animal she believed to be a wild pig was nearby and growling. He informed her he would turn on his truck siren and asked her to listen. She was unable to hear his siren, so the officer told her to use her iPhone to send him her location by text message, which she did.
The officer then hiked to that location and found her and a male subject in a tree. She warned the officer the pig was still close by and she heard it just a few minutes before he arrived.
Shortly after, the officer heard a car drive over the rumble strips nearby on Galm Road and watched as the woman’s body language immediately changed. The officer asked if they believed the noise they just heard was a pig and both nodded. He explained it was only cars crossing rumble strips on the road nearby. Embarrassed by the misperceived threat, the lost hikers were reassured by the officer the unknown can be scary and their reaction surprisingly common.