TROXELVILLE -- In addition to requesting additional manpower upon the discovery of David Frank Bone, 64, of Mechanicsburg, Snyder County 911 Coordinator Chad Aucker asked PEMA for a "quicker means for extrication, including a rescue helicopter," he said.

Snyder County 911 first notified PEMA of the search-and-rescue effort at 8:50 p.m. Oct. 13, according to a phone log provided by PEMA in response to a Right-to-Know Law request.

At 5:40 a.m. Oct. 14, a Snyder County 911 dispatcher asked a PEMA official for any additional resources that would help with the search-and-rescue in the dense woodlands of the Snyder-Middleswarth Nature Area. The dispatcher was told PEMA does not have any listing of search-and-rescue resources, but provided a phone number to the Pennsylvania Search-and-Rescue Council.

At 12:16 p.m. the same day, a Snyder County Emergency Management official told PEMA that Bone had been found, but they still had not found any means of getting him to a landing zone for a medical helicopter, two miles away.

It would take three to four hours for rescue personnel to carry Bone there, Aucker said -- through two miles of rough terrain including a 45-degree slope, and a trail no wider than 12 inches that required rescue personnel to cut brush with chain saws.

At 12:25 p.m., Aucker again contacted PEMA and asked if any other resources for rescue were available.

According to the time log from PEMA, when Snyder County asked, state emergency management officials replied that there was no quicker way to get Bone off the mountain than by carrying him.

Bone was pronounced dead at 3:50 p.m., approximately 3 1/2 hours after being found a mile and a half off the nearest trail.

Medical personnel from LifeFlight, Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, attempted to reach Bone as quickly as possible, but by the time they met up with the rescue personnel carrying him out of the woods, he had already died, according to Chris Palmer, a Geisinger spokesman.

If it had been requested by PEMA, a rescue helicopter from the National Guard would have taken one hour to prepare for deployment, and another hour to travel to the site from the closest base, at Fort Indiantown Gap in Annville.

"We didn't receive a mission," said Cory Angell, a National Guard public affairs officer with the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs at Fort Indiantown Gap. "I can't speculate on what our ability would have been to respond to it."

They receive their missions directly from PEMA, he said.

The failure to request the assistance of the National Guard was questioned by a pilot from the state Bureau of Forestry, according to reports released by PEMA.

"I would like to know if PEMA has the ability to seek support from the Army National Guard at (Fort Indiantown Gap)," Matthew Gross, an aircraft operations and safety specialist with the Bureau of Forestry, wrote in an Oct. 15 e-mail to PEMA. "Those assets are flying daily on local training sorties, but I know could be released in the event of a real-life (search-and-rescue) mission. Who better than these combat-ready/trained folks to do this sort of a mission?"

He added: "Sorry to hit with all this, it just blows my mind that Pennsylvania doesn't have a better working relationship between all the folks with assets that could have supported this citizen of the Commonwealth in a time of need."