A duck hunter on Maquoit Bay, Maine, had to phone the police Wednesday afternoon after an attempt to retrieve several ducks went awry.
Matthew Alexander of Topsham had shot several ducks while hunting from an embankment along Wharton’s Point, according to a statement issued by the Brunswick police department Thursday. When the 31-year-old walked across the mud to retrieve them, the ground gave out from underneath him and he suddenly sank waist-deep in the muck.
“He was unable to move, and the more he struggled, the deeper he became,” reads the statement.
Just after 2 p.m., Alexander called 911 to report he was stuck in mud and could not return to shore. Police officers used the agency’s dedicated Marine Patrol air boat to reach him, and it took two officers hauling on Alexander to “break the suction” and free him. They pulled him aboard the airboat and, as the release takes care to note, the ducks were also retrieved.
Officials transported Alexander to the Mid Coast Hospital by Brunswick Rescue “due to time exposed to the ocean water,” but it’s not immediately clear if those concerns were related to hypothermia or potential exposure to bacteria.
Water quality in Maquoit Bay has declined dramatically in recent years, according to the Maquoit Bay Water Quality Task Force Agenda. It has experienced “numerous shellfish bed closures due to high concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria and shellfish kills caused by algae blooms.”
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Alexander was later released, and the Brunswick Police Department “reminds people that coastal mud flats are very unstable and have what is commonly referred to as ‘honey pots,’ which cannot be seen until too late. Honey pots are areas in the mud that act like quick sand.”
While confirmed fatalities from mudflat entrapment on Maine’s coast are rare, the phenomenon is well known and often deadly in places like Cook Inlet, near Anchorage, Alaska, where people, including clam diggers, venture out onto the mudflats at low tide, become stuck, and drown when the tide rises.
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