Missing Woman, 71, Found ‘Cold, Confused’ In Canal

PALM RIVER, FL — A 71-year-old woman reported missing by her family on Tuesday was reunited with her loved ones hours later after Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies found her in a canal near her home. Deputies say Lillian Morales “was cold, confused and covered with insect bites,” but otherwise was OK.

Morales, the sheriff’s office said, left her home on Fish Lake Road in the Palm River area around 3 p.m. July 11. When her family couldn’t find her, they notified authorities. Morales, the sheriff’s office said, suffers from health issues and “has been diagnosed with dementia.”

Get the Patch newsletter and alerts in your inbox.

After receiving the call about Morales’ disappearance, “our deputies wasted no time in reacting,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a Thursday email to media. Deputies and K9 units scoured the neighborhood while the agency’s helicopter took to the air.

“But time passed, and stormy weather moved in, and the frustrated family could only hope and wait,” the sheriff’s office said. “Then about seven hours after the woman disappeared, sheriff’s pilot Jeff Gray and tactical flight officer Manny Feller” spotted a “glowing human heat source in a narrow canal near the woman’s home.”

From the air, Feller and Gray directed deputies on the ground to the source of the heat signature. Once there, Deputies Nick Elliott and Brett Seigler found Morales “sitting in knee-deep water.”

Morales was carried out of the canal and returned to her family.

A video of the rescue was released by the sheriff’s office on Thursday. It can be viewed below:

Image via Shutterstock