By The Associated Press
SHELTON, Mason County — Officials with the Mason County Sheriff’s Office say search and rescue teams are looking for a soldier who disappeared near Shelton after a military parachuting training exercise.
The soldier is part of a special forces unit based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord that was training Friday morning over a wooded area in Mason County.
The unidentified soldier was forced to deploy a reserve parachute during the training exercise and hasn’t been seen since.
Q13 Fox News reports that as of Friday night about 110 people were searching in a 6-mile diameter circle of rough terrain and timber using night-vision goggles.
“With this area, he could be hanging in a tree,” Mason County Sheriff’s Office Chief Criminal Deputy Ryan Spurling told Q13. “We don’t know if he’s injured or not. We don’t know if he’s alive and trying to come back. We don’t know if he’s mortally injured.”
A search party made up of Mason County deputies, military personnel, tribal officials and others has set up a command post in Shelton.
