iPhone Flashlight Helps Lost Mount Airy Hiker Get Rescued

MOUNT AIRY, Md. - Christopher Tkacik and his buddy Boo are back home in Mount Airy, Md., safe and sound, with quite a story to tell about the New Year's Eve they spent lost in the woods.

"If I was alone, I would have been worried from the beginning," Tkacik said. "But you have your best friend with you."

They were hiking in Gambrill State Park northwest of Frederick. When they crossed the same creek for the fourth time, Tkacik says he knew they were lost. He called 911. The sheriff sent a helicopter. At home, his wife Aysem sent Christopher a text message.

"At 5:23 p.m., I ask, ‘Where are you?’" Aysem Tkacik says, reading the message that is still on her phone. "And he goes, 'Lost. Police on their way.'"

"Bad thing, but good thing," Christopher explains. "And she said, 'Where are you?' I really don't know."

"And I keep asking 'Ok. Do I need to worry?’" Aysem continues.

“No,” Christopher responded in the text conversation.

You see, Christopher had his iPhone.

"Having a charged phone made a world of difference," says Christopher. "If I didn't have a phone, I would have been stuck really bad."

But he says he couldn't trust the Map application.

"It kept telling me that I'm here," he says, pointing to a location on his phone.

But he knew that he wasn't. As soon as he heard the police helicopter, Christopher turned on the phone's flashlight. It caught the flight crew's eye.

A 43-year-old lawyer for UMBC, Tkacik was eventually rescued, but it took four hours.

"It's really scary," Aysem says. "You have no idea what kind of an ending it's going to have."

Two rescuers would eventually rappel 150 feet down from a park police helicopter and escort Christopher and Boo out of the woods.

"He gave me Steve Jobs biography for Christmas," Aysem says. "And I started reading it. Steve Jobs with the iPhone - oh my gosh - technology's good."

So is a loyal pooch.

"I never would have gone without him," Christopher says of Boo. "But now that I've had this experience, I'll never go without him. I want to have him with me at all times."

And that included another morning hike on Monday.