An elderly fisherman has been found alive after surviving alone in a forest for 17 days after going missing.
Rescue crews had been out looking for 69-year-old Harry Burleigh after he vanished during a camping trip in the Twin Lakes area of Oregon, USA.
On Sunday afternoon, a team calling his name found him near where they had discovered a shelter he’d built for himself days earlier.
Mr Burleigh was originally supposed to go home on Thursday, May 6 and his wife reported him missing the next day.
On Friday, May 8 Mr Burleigh’s car was found near a trail and the sheriff’s office concluded at the time he had attempted to walk into the lakes to fish before going home.
By Sunday, May 16 searchers found a makeshift shelter and a tackle box but weren’t able to track down the missing fisherman for another week.
The crews had left food packages on the trails and notes to Mr Burleigh in the area where there was evidence he had been roaming since he was lost.
“He was found to be walking and complaining of minor pain, but was in stable condition,” a Douglas County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said.
Rescuers used a helicopter to take Mr Burleigh out of the area and to a hospital last weekend, the spokesman added.
Mr Burleigh's wife Stacy Burleigh called it “the best of news” in a Facebook group called Roseburg Tracker that had been used to update people about the search for her husband.
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She wrote: “I spoke to him on the phone and he is coherent and emotional. I will be with him soon.”
The sheriff’s office listed 18 agencies that had helped in the search efforts.
Sgt. Brad O’Dell said: “This was the outcome we all have been looking for in this case.
“It is because of our determined Search and Rescue Teams and the partnerships we have with other SAR teams from around the state, that Mr Burleigh has been re-united with his family this evening.”
