PISCATAWAY – When Cara Jones let her black-and-white pit bull, "Creature," out Thursday night to relieve herself at the end of William Street, she heard something unusual coming from the woods.

“I kept hearing sticks breaking,” said Jones, 23, a hairstylist who works in Bridgewater. “I thought it was a fox.”

Suddenly, her 2-year-old dog began barking wildly.

“She was standing there, barking and looking back at me,” Jones said.

Jones ran back into her home, grabbed a flashlight and cellphone and ran into the woods.

There, in the brush she spotted 89-year-old Carmen Mitchell, lying on the ground.

“She was covered in mud and she was barefoot,” Jones said.

The elderly woman had wandered from her family’s home in Piscataway earlier in the day, police said.

The 5-foot, 7-inch woman was last seen hours earlier carrying her slippers near the Piscataway-Middlesex border, according to a report.

Police searched for hours in patrol cars, on foot and with the help of a low-flying state police helicopter.

But it was “Creature” who found the woman.

“We had people all over the area,” said Capt. Kenneth Blair of the Piscataway Police Department. “We had fire units from every district; 10 police officers, state police helicopter.

“But it was her dog who found her. The dog actually led (Jones) to the spot,” he said.

Emergency rescue workers arrived on the scene almost immediately after Jones called.

“I’ve never seen police respond so fast,” she said.

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Ambulance workers placed Mitchell on a stretcher and carried her out of the woods. She was taken to a local hospital for observation.

The woman suffered slightly from hypothermia, said Blair, but other than that appeared to be OK.

Jones said Friday morning she wanted the story about her dog to get out because it seemed the media had paid too much attention to the police helicopter that was used.

“Pit bulls never get any recognition for doing something good,” she said. “Here’s a chance to say something good about a pit bull.”

Related coverage:

Missing Piscataway woman, 89, is found after helicopter search

Piscataway police searching for missing elderly woman