A missing 91-year-old Korean War vet with dementia was found more than 200 miles away from his Wyoming home — when his worried wife spotted him on an evening newscast two days after he wandered off.
Avril Black’s concern was mounting after her spouse Michael Black vanished after he left their Afton home on Nov. 25, leading her to report him missing the next morning, according to a local report.
While authorities reportedly gathered he had hitchhiked his way to Ovid, Idaho, and then traveled down to Garden City, Utah, he was in the wind from there.
While the search continued, Michael was welcomed at the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake Tuesday night, after a missionary connected with a worker at the homeless shelter, according to KSL News.
“I realized the sweet old man was in need of some help,” Jay Rouse, who is the chapel lead at the shelter, said of the Korean War veteran.
As Avril continued to think about her missing hubby, she flipped on the 10 p.m. newscast Tuesday and witnessed a miracle.
While watching a segment on KSL about Thanksgiving meals being served at the Utah shelter, she saw her husband in the background as he chowed down more than three hours driving away from home.
“You were just filming around and I thought, ‘Well wait a minute. I’m sure I saw Michael,’” Avril told the station. “So I paused the TV, set it back and yeah, sure enough there he was!”
She called the moment “unreal.”
“I was so relieved, I actually slept that night knowing he was safe,” she said.
Rouse also ended up calling Afton police on the next morning on Thanksgiving after he remembered the missionary mentioned the elderly man was from the small Wyoming town.
Michael was diagnosed with dementia nine years ago and has a tendency for wandering off, but this was the longest — and farthest — he had been away from home.
“I’m speechless. It just blows me away that that happened,” a grateful Avril told the station.
“Boy does he have some guardian angel looking after him. And you guys, thank goodness that you were there.”
