An 87-year-old Bowser man reported missing on Monday was found nearly 24 hours later near Horne Lake.
Search and rescue crews found Jan Baartman on Tuesday around 7:30 p.m. by Nile Creek.
Rescuers say his truck got stuck on a cross-ditch off the Inland Highway and he was stranded.
“We certainly spread the search effort out well outside our original boundary and it was really just very lucky that the vehicle was located because it was a very obscure spot,” SAR manager, Paul Berry, said.
Forty search and rescue members had been out searching for Baartman since 8 p.m. on Monday, after he failed to return home from chopping wood.
They found his pickup truck on a decommissioned logging road on Tuesday afternoon, about 400-metres from where they later found Baartman.
Crews say he was cold and sore, but managed to stay warm by moving around.
“[He] had been out and exposed to sub-zero temperatures the night before, but he was in surprisingly good shape,” Berry said.
Speaking from a hospital bed Wednesday, Baartman was almost speechless as he thanked everyone for their efforts.
"First of all, thank you [...] thank you for what you guys have done,” he said. “What can I say, God bless you all."
While the search had a happy ending, Berry says it could have been much worse.
“Most people who are lost in the wilderness in B.C., most succumb within the first 24 hours usually due to hypothermia,” Berry added. “He beat the odds.”
Baartman was taken to the Comox Valley Hospital for a medical assessment.
His family says they want to say thank everyone who helped with the search.
“We just want to express our gratitude to everybody who helped in that process,” said Baartman’s daughter, Corrine Ryvers. “We just want to thank the community of Bowser, they were absolutely amazing, and everybody who came out and either supplied food or put up posters or came around to ask what they could do for our family.”
