Russell found

Published 12:00 am Friday, August 26, 2011

Panola Deputy Sheriff Clint Roberson (standing left) and Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks officer Marion Pearson (center) briefed volunteers as they prepared for Thursday’s search.

By John Howell
A Panola County man who walked away from his Murphrey Ridge home on Tuesday was found about 8 a.m. by a family member who heard his cries coming from a heavily-wooded area. The family member called for assistance to extricate Russell from the undergrowth and terrain obstacles.

Panola Deputy Sheriff Clint Roberson said at 9:15 Friday that Ricky Russell was being transported by ambulance to the North Mississippi Medical Center in Oxford for evaluation. Roberson said that Russell was suffering from “dehydration and scratches. He was in some rough stuff,” about 1.5 to 2 miles from the home.

Ricky Russell, 57, described by family members as suffering from bouts of Alzheimer’s-type dementia, left his house about 10 a.m. Tuesday. When he was found almost 72 hours later, he was about 1.5 to 2 miles from the home,

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Family members soon summoned help, and by Tuesday afternoon, area search and rescue units and other volunteers were combing the area, but with no results. Searches resumed on Wednesday and again on Thursday. The search was complicated by Russell’s apparent desire not to be found.

“This guy will hide from you,” Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks (MDWFP) officer Marion Pearson told DeSoto Search and Rescue Lieutenant Curtis Boykin and Sergeant Jeannie Shull on Thursday as searchers prepared to begin their third day.

As the search got under way, temperatures in the high 90s, with accompanying high humidity, drove the heat index above 110 degrees.

During the second day of the search, rescue officials received a report about 2:30 p.m. that Russell had been spotted along a roadside.

An acquaintance of Russell told officials that when she spotted the barefoot man, she stopped and called to him, “Hey Ricky,” Panola County Emergency Management director Daniel Cole said.
He turned and ran back into the undergrowth. She was “pretty adamant” that the man she spotted was Russell, Cole said.

A helicopter with heat sensing devices “flew that area last (Tuesday) night,” Cole said Thursday, but weather conditions interfered, making the search less thorough than he would have liked.

“We’ve had a good outpouring of folks, not just other search and rescues, people in the community as well,” Panola Deputy Sheriff Clint Roberson said.

Searchers on foot, including some with tracking dogs, on all-terrain vehicles, horseback and cars have scoured the area.  Up to 200 people have been involved in the search, Roberson said, including volunteers and law enforcement personnel from DeSoto, Grenada and Lafayette counties.

“We had one man to come from Tupelo and bring his tracking dog,” one rescue official said.
The Coles Point Volunteer Fire Department station on Sardis Lake Drive has served as the staging area for volunteers. The plan for Thursday was to utilize most of the volunteers in a sight-line search.

“Start walking west (from Murphey Road) as far as you can,” Roberson said, keeping in a line and in sight of the searcher on either side.

Cole described the kudzu covering the steep hills in the area as “thick, thick, thick.”
During the volunteers’ Thursday briefing that ended about 9:30 a.m., Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks officer Marion Pearson reminded the volunteers, “Don’t forget to look up.”

A Panola County deputy sheriff said that family members had told them that Russell’s condition includes “good days and bad days.” He also said that Russell was adept at “survival skills.”

“The Panola County Sheriff’s Department and Panola County Search and Rescue thank all the volunteers and search and rescues who helped. Roberson placed the number of volunteers at “at least 200, not to mention people who rode the roads and handed out flyers.”