Police have released a video showing the moment our officers rescued a missing pensioner who feared for his life after getting trapped in dense shrubland.
76-year-old Lynton strayed off course when out walking in fields near Coleshill on 12 November.
And he got into real difficulty after falling down a ditch in the darkness and getting tangled in brambles.
He called his son who raised the alarm with us.
Thankfully Police managed to trace Lynton’s phone signal shortly before the battery went flat which pointed to a wooded area near the M6 and Collector Road.
Search specialists from our Operational Support Unit (OSU) began scouring the area and were guided towards a heat source down an embankment.
PCs Lee Parker and Adam Kendall found Lynton curled up in a ball. He’d been missing for around three hours. He told the officers “I was about to give up”.
His son Steve Bradley later praised the officers involved in the search.
He added: “Dad phoned me to say ‘I’m in trouble, I’ve gone for a walk and I’m lost, I’ve taken a fall I can’t get out’. I live in Peterborough and drove straight over; when I got there I couldn’t believe how many police were helping with the search.
“It was amazing when I saw the torchlights and they appeared with him.
“Another hour in there on his own and it may have been a different story. I can’t thank the officers enough for what they did to save him.
“One of them said it’d made their year finding him alive and that’s really struck me how much they cared and desperately wanted to find him.”
Lynton was checked over by paramedics at the scene but apart from scratches – and a sore foot as he lost a shoe in the fall – he wasn’t seriously injured.
Our Chief Superintendent Sarah Burton said: “It was a great team effort to find Lynton…this was a challenging area to search, a vast area of fields with thick set borders, deep trenches, water and dense undergrowth.
“Their combined professionalism, dedication and commitment undoubtedly saved his life. All the officers involved should be very proud of their actions.”