OGEMAW COUNTY — A 70-year-old man who went missing Tuesday morning in a wooded area of Edwards Township was safely located and reunited with his family after a multiagency search effort, authorities said.
Per an Oct. 1 news release, the Ogemaw County Sheriff’s Office said the man wandered away from his home near County Highway F-18 and M-30 around 11:30 a.m. Deputies began the search with canine units while a Michigan State Police helicopter assisted from the air.
Michigan Department of Natural Resources conservation officers Kyle Bader, Brad Bellville, Josh Jobin and probationary officer Andrew Werth joined the search and applied search and rescue tactics known as “lost person behavior.”
At about 3:10 p.m., one of the officers found the man in a ditch roughly 100 yards from his home. He was in stable condition and did not require medical treatment.
“Based on our training, we know that people with health conditions, such as dementia in this situation, are often located within 1.5 miles from the place they left,” Lt. Jeremy Payne of the DNR said in a statement.
The Sheriff’s Office led the search with assistance from the DNR and state police.
Conservation officers, who are fully licensed law enforcement officers, regularly undergo search and rescue training and provide both natural resources protection and lifesaving operations throughout Michigan.