A lost Eatonton man was found safe a few hours after he was reported missing.
The timing of his rescue seemed preordained, as his rescuer had just met him the day before.
James Timothy Smith, 48, was last seen when he purchased some groceries from Ingles in Eatonton around 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 3, according to reports from the Eatonton Police Department. Smith always walks on his errands due to some medical issues stemming from a previous vehicle accident. Around 9:30 p.m., his sister called the Eatonton Police Department because he had not come back home.
When the call came in, Eatonton police officer Jeremy McClure met with the sister at Ingles, and Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell notified the Eatonton Fire Department.
“I was off duty, but I heard the call on the radio, so I called the police department because the description of the missing man sounded like the guy I had picked up the day before and given a ride to,” said EFD firefighter Denise Hill.
After some discussion, Hill said she told the dispatcher, “I know exactly who you’re talking about because the day before, when he was in the car with me, he was showing me the scars on his head, the rod in his leg. We were just talking and got to know each other. He’s a really nice guy.”
Realizing it was getting dark quickly, Hill decided to go out looking for Smith in an area off the road between the residential neighborhood and the Ingles grocery store.
“I put on my PPE (personal protective equipment) because the brush is really tall, and I started walking along the powerline, shining my flashlight,” Hill described. “We have really good flashlights that shine a long distance.”
Hill said that as she was walking, she heard someone talking.
“So I called out ‘Timothy, is that you?’ and he said ‘Yeah, it’s me,’” Hill said. “I asked if he could see me and he said ‘No, but I see your light,’ and I said ‘Well, just follow the light.’” Hill laughed, saying the story sounded like something out of a movie. When Timothy finally appeared in the flashlight’s beam, he was still a long distance away, back in the tall brush.
“So, I told him just to stay there and I would come to him,” Hill continued. “So, I had to move the brush and cross over the creek. And when I got to him, he said he’d left his groceries back in the bushes and I said, ‘we’ll get you some more groceries, we’re not going back in there.’”
Eatonton Fire Chief Jamey Williamson said the location, off of Town Creek Road, was “a long way out.”
“He walks to Ingles all the time, so probably in the wintertime, he can use it as a shortcut when nothing is growing,” Williamson explained. “But now that it’s spring, it’s all grown up, and he said he couldn’t tell where he was because he couldn’t see.”
Williamson and Cardwell both commended Hill for her diligence in continuing her search, even though the conditions were not favorable.
“It was pitch black dark, and luckily she found him,” Cardwell added.