Screams from canyon offer new lead in search for missing California man, officials say
Authorities have a new development in the search for a missing California man who vanished during a run at Pleasanton Regional Park over the weekend.
Search teams looked for the man at Niles Canyon near Sunol Wednesday after a family there said they heard a scream for help from the canyon, Bay Area News reported.
“We’ll always follow the information we have,” Alameda County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt. Ray Kelly said about Philip Kreycik, 37, of Berkeley, who disappeared Saturday. “But we knew that Tuesday was going to be the big push.”
Volunteers gathered at the Sunol post office Wednesday morning to scour the canyon, but the search has proven to be unsuccessful so far, SFGate reported.
Kreycik went for a 6- to 8-mile run Saturday morning in the park and left his wallet and phone inside his car, McClatchy News previously reported. He didn’t return home.
Kreycik’s wife phoned police hours after Kreycik was supposed to come back, KRON4 reported.
Pleasanton police said they were worried because temperatures reached triple digits on Saturday and search teams, including scent hounds, were called to look for Kreycik, according to NBC Bay Area.
One of the dogs found Kreycik’s scent and followed it from his car to the trail but lost track, the station reported.
Kreycik has been described as an “endurance athlete” in “top physical condition” who is used to “rural terrain and outdoor environments,” Alameda County Sheriff’s officials said in a Facebook post. Temperatures reached 106 degrees Saturday but they weren’t “a deterrent” for Kreycik who “thrives in extreme environments,” authorities said.
More than 100 search-and-rescue members have looked for Kreycik over the past four days and drones, dogs, helicopters and an airplane with thermal imagery have also been used, officials said.
By Tuesday, the search for Kreycik reached a “critical” stage, authorities said, CBS San Francisco reported.
“We’ve done an exhaustive search over the last four days,” said Sgt. Ray Kelly with the Alameda Sheriff’s Special Operations Group, according to the station. Kelly said the two probabilities were that Kreycik is incapacitated and can’t be found or he is somewhere else entirely.
