Photo: Kira Kutscher / iStock / Getty Images
Last week, a 24-year-old autistic man was found alive after going missing for nearly 12 hours in the 13-hundred-acre River Legacy Park in Arlington, Texas. Jacob Bates had been riding bikes with his dad, Scot Bates, who briefly lost sight of him, prompting a search that began around 7 p.m. with Arlington police using officers on foot, drones, and a helicopter. When the initial search effort failed, officials called for volunteers as temperatures dropped into the 30s.
David Dedwylder, a local real estate agent familiar with the park, joined the search and suggested using a heat-detecting drone, which led him to contact Chance Sauser, a drone company owner from Rowlett. Despite getting the call at 1:40 a.m., he drove about 90 minutes to the park and worked with Dedwylder to search an area opposite where others had focused. Just before his drone battery ran out, Sauser spotted Jacob.
Family members and volunteers cut through a chain-link fence and barbed wire and followed the drone through thick brush in the dark until they heard Jacob respond to their calls. When they finally reached him, he said he wasn’t scared but was cold, so his father gave him warm clothing before he was taken by ambulance to the hospital and later released. “We feel like it’s a miracle,” says Jacob’s uncle Tim Gundlach, adding, “These guys don’t know us from Adam, but what they did made the difference.”
Source: PEOPLE