Andorra Firefighters Aid French Rescue with Lifeseeker Tech for Missing Hiker

Andorran firefighters' Lifeseeker technology assisted French rescuers in the search for a 74-year-old hiker missing for more than 40 hours in France's Ariège region, where teams located him alive on Thursday around noon.

The man, originally from the Tarn area with a property in Engomer in the Couserans, had been foraging for mushrooms with a friend near Sentein on Tuesday when the pair became separated and he lost contact. French rescuers had passed very close to his position the previous day without spotting him in a hole. He was found near the Chapelle de l'Izard.

At the request of French authorities, two members of Andorra's Mountain Rescue Group, backed by a fire service helicopter, joined the operation on Wednesday. They departed from Santa Coloma fire station and arrived in the Santenh sector near Saint-Girons after a 15-minute flight around midday. For about 90 minutes, they deployed Lifeseeker—a detection tool unique to the Pyrenees and in use since 2017—to pinpoint the man's active mobile phone signal, even without network coverage, and relayed precise coordinates to French teams.

The French operation involved around 20 specialists skilled in water searches, dogs, drones, and helicopters. Upon locating the hiker, a doctor arrived via helicopter from Tarbes, along with a mountain rescue unit, to provide care.

Ariège gendarmerie high-mountain group leader Captain Jean-Marc Galin previously highlighted the device's value, absent from Pyrenean units but used by some French Alpine teams such as Grenoble. Andorra duty chief Officer Parra emphasized that Lifeseeker relies on the phone retaining battery and attempting connections. The technology had also been noted as potentially helpful in a separate rescue on Monday for a missing hiker-camper.