The Pine River man who was found dead following a search Wednesday evening has been identified as 76-year-old William Storm.
On Wednesday, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office 911 Dispatch Center received a call of a missing hunter. It was reported that the 76-year-old man had come home to get waders so he could go across the river to track a deer at around 1 p.m. and had not been seen or heard from since.
Responding units included members of the Pine River Fire Department, Merrill Fire Department & EMS, Tomahawk Fire Department, Russell Fire Department, Corning Fire Department and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. Fire department personnel along with deputies, using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) equipped with Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) thermal imaging camera, searched from the air.
Ground searchers located the deer that Storm was set out to find when he went missing, providing a starting point for the UAV to being a search. After approximately 45 minutes in the air, a UAV thermal image of the possible victim was located on the edge of the river approximately 100 yards south of the deer’s location. That information was relayed to ground searchers, who quickly located Storm deceased at approximately 6:15 p.m.
The incident remains under investigation by the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and the Lincoln County Coroner.