After seven days spent trapped under a tree limb, Larry Shaddy’s survival and rescue has been hailed as a miracle.
Pls help find 66 y/o Larry Shaddy, last seen in the 8900 blk of Ardwick Ardmore Road. pic.twitter.com/2yngJkyjRZ
— PGPDNEWS (@PGPDNews) July 22, 2015
As WJZ News reports, the 66-year-old veteran was last seen July 20th, when he went out for a late night walk and failed to return home. According to Imelda Clark, who runs the veteran’s home where he lives, Shaddy was having trouble sleeping after learning that he was diagnosed with lung cancer. As the days passed with no news or clues to his disappearance, Shaddy’s friends began to lose hope.
Then a stranger noticed a man trapped under a tree in a wooded area near a busy highway. As emergency crews responded, they quickly figured out that the trapped man was the same person who had been missing for a week. After so long without food or water, rescuers were amazed to find Shaddy still alive, albeit disoriented and dehydrated.
“For whatever reason, the gentleman was walking off the roadway, must have slipped, fell 10 to 15 feet down this steep incline and underneath this tree,” Mark Brady of Prince George’s County Fire Department told WJZ. “It’s incredible that someone could survive like that in that position for about a week.”
Shaddy was found less than a block from his house. Although the area is heavily trafficked by people walking home from work, no one saw the man struggling to survive just a few yards away in the woods.
Rescuers say that they got to the missing man just in the nick of time as the already-hot temperatures are expected to rise over the next few days. Shaddy was taken to the hospital and treated for his injuries as well as dehydration, but is expected to survive.
