An 85-year-old man with dementia was found alive after spending the night in a 4.5 metre ditch. The man was located by a dedicated policewoman who spent her day off searching for the missing grandfather.
Joseph Hughes disappeared from a nursing home in the Welsh suburb of Porthcawl on Saturday afternoon.
Mr Hughes’ absence from the home was noticed later that afternoon when his son arrived for a visit but was unable to locate his father within the facility.
Mr Hughes’ son, nursing home staff and local authorities quickly launched a large-scale search effort, which ran all the way through the night and into the next morning, but unfortunately, the search failed to yield a result.
Distressed family members continued their search efforts the following morning, as did a policewoman by the name of Amy who had been unable to stop thinking about the lost grandfather.
With hopes beginning to fade and legs beginning to tire, Amy’s loud calls of “Mr Hughes!” were eventually met with a response that appeared to have come from a ditch that was covered in thick foliage.
It was Mr Hughes.
He had spent the entire night in the ditch wearing only a thin T-shirt and thin trousers.
Mr Hughes’ daughter-in-law, Linda, described the scenes to local reporters
“He’d not eaten or drank anything since 1pm the previous day and he wasn’t dressed for lying outside, he had trousers and a T-shirt on.”
“[Amy] said she got drawn to where [Mr Hughes] was. I called her ‘Amy the Angel’ because I think she was.”
