GUNTOWN, Miss (WTVA) - The look on Charles Vick's face tells the story as rescuers return him home on Lee County Road 813 safely following an almost twenty-two hour search.

Ecstatic relatives say they last saw Vick in his yard Thursday afternoon before he went missing.
 
The Lee County Sheriff's Department was notified around 8:00 Thursday night.

'We knew that the individual suffered from Alzheimers. At the point that we made contact with the family, and the last person that had seem Mr. Vick we knew that there had not been a vehicle of his choosing that was involved. We knew he didn't drive off. So we were pretty certain that he had wandered off and just gotten disoriented or something tragically had happened and it was going to be up to us to find him", said Sheriff Jim Johnson.

The Sheriff says search crews, with the help of Tupelo P.D. helicopters ,were able to find Vick less than 2 miles from his home in a hunting cabin deep in the thickly-wooded forest near his home.

Sheriff Johnson says that its hard for anyone at any age to negotiate woods as thick as these let alone a man nearly 70 years old .

That's why its even more remarkable that this story has a happy ending.

"You know a lot of times especially not only do they have alzheimers . A lot of times they are elderly you have the elements of what you are dealing we had some bad weather as far as water.And a lot of times these individuals get hung up and fall or break something and you a lot of times you don't find them", Sheriff Johnson continued.

But thankfully says the Sheriff and relatives, this was not one of those times.  

The Sheriff thanked a host of rescuers from all over North Mississippi including Union County Emergency Management, Tupelo Police Department, Saltillo Police Department and the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.