Wadesboro police officers found a missing blind man just before a winter storm hit Anson County on Jan. 21.
When Chief Thedis Spencer’s department received a call about the missing 62-year-old, who Spencer said is completely blind, his officers wasted no time in the hunt.
As temperatures dropped on Jan. 21 ahead of the storm, Spencer said he knew time was short.
The man, who police declined to identify, went walking with a friend about 1:30 p.m. but when his wife had not heard from him by 6 that evening, she called police.
“The officers were advised by the wife that the other gentleman her husband left with told her that her husband had decided he was ready to go home, and instead of assisting the man back, the subject he was walking with just turned him around and pointed him in the right direction; an action which could have resulted in a devastating injury had it not been for our officers,” Spencer said.
Officers Alex Sherwood and Thomas Luckey were at the end of their shift when they got the call.
The officers split up. Luckey talked with the man’s wife and looked into the area where he was supposed to be heading, formulating a rescue plan with Spencer.
Sherwood was searching a logging road behind Harlem Heights Road, where the man lives, about one mile from the man’s intended destination of Anson Inn when he heard noise in the woods. He found the missing man about 25 yards from the road just 30 minutes after police had begun the search. It took him three tries to get through the dense brush to the man.
Sherwood said it took him at least 10 minutes to get the man untangled from the brush and to the road. It was such a mess that thorns ripped and ruined the officer’s uniform.
“He was in a densely wooded area,” Sherwood said. “I couldn’t see him, I could only hear him. There are no houses back there and no traffic. His wife and another subject had already been nearby looking for him, but nobody goes back there.”
The man declined medical assistance and had no injuries, according to Spencer.
“He insisted he was OK, just cold,” Spencer said. “With the way the weather was that night, he could’ve lost his life with the frigid air and wind. I’m just glad we found him. His family was very excited to have him back home.”
Sherwood said he thought to look in the area since it was not populated, guessing that if the man had been in a residential area, someone would have seen him.
“He was saying, ‘Thank God, thank God,’ and just praising Jesus,” Sherwood said. “I imagine that he’d been praying the whole time he’d been out there and felt his prayers were answered when he was found.”
Luckey said that the man’s rescue was something of a miracle.
“He was very close to a large pond and a ravine,” Luckey said. “If he’d gone over there, we never would’ve found him.”
Police don’t usually begin searching for missing persons immediately, but given the man’s disability and the coming storm, Luckey said the department was in a rush to find him.
“Officer Sherwood took it upon himself to not wait because of the circumstances and the severity of the situation,” Luckey said. “It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. If he had gone any further, we wouldn’t have found him.”
Days after the discovery, Sherwood went back to check on the man, who was “doing well” after the incident, Spencer said.
“I want to commend the actions of Officer Alex Sherwood and Officer Thomas Luckey, and for acting swiftly and diligently in finding the missing blind man,” Spencer said. “As officers, we don’t always know if our actions help save lives; sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it is subtler. However, on this night, it is clearly evident that this man’s life was likely saved, and a terrible tragedy and loss to a family was avoided.”
Luckey was also full of praise for Sherwood.
“What it boils down to is if Officer Sherwood hadn’t taken it upon himself to be relentless, I’m pretty sure we’d be in a situation where we’d be looking for a subject who’d been deceased for a while,” Luckey said. “People don’t realize how much of a thin line there is between life and death out here. Some go for good and some go for bad. It’s the little things people take for granted that Officer Sherwood did. This could’ve ended very badly. Very badly.”
When the officers returned the man to his home, the man’s wife, friends and members of his church had gathered there and were planning a search party, Luckey said. Although he said Spencer was already planning a search and rescue, Luckey said he was unsure whether search parties could have gone out in the dark and in the storm that hit just hours after the man was found.
“I’m glad it turned out the way it did,” Sherwood said. “With him legally blind, his wife said he has to be guided everywhere he goes. For him to be put in that situation, with the weather and the darkness, there’s no telling what his health would’ve been. We’re just lucky that we found him.”
Luckey agreed.
“It’s not until you sit back and look at it that you realize how close it was,” he said.
Sherwood has been with the department for about two years and Luckey has served for nearly 13 years. Before joining the Wadesboro police, Sherwood worked as a law enforcement officer in Texas for five years.
Luckey said that the department has not yet filed any charges against the man’s friend who sent him down the road by himself, but that the department will speak with the district attorney’s office to see if he should be charged.
People tend to associate police with finding criminals, but officers do so much more, Spencer said.
“Officers are not here just for arrests, but to provide service,” he said.
Spencer said he was proud of his officers.
“As an officer, there is no greater feeling than knowing that you helped save the life of another, because after all, that is the foundation of what we do: to serve and protect,” Spencer said. “Job well done, men, job well done!”
Reach reporter Imari Scarbrough at 704-994-5471 and follow her on Twitter @ImariScarbrough.
Officers Thomas Luckey, left, and Alex Sherwood were at the end of their shift when the received a call about a missing blind man who disappeared just hours before Winter Storm Jonas reached Anson County.
This photo shows a wooded area on the logging road where the missing man was found. Sherwood said the area the man was found was 25 yards off the road and so dense with underbrush that he couldn’t see him until he got closer.
Officers Alex Sherwood, left, and Thomas Luckey look over a Google map showing the large, densely wooded search area where Sherwood found a missing blind man on Jan. 21.