The 17-year-old Katie Qualls became everyone’s hero when she found a missing man suffering from dementia in October. Katie, a Madison Central High School student, had accidentally discovered a post on her neighborhood’s Facebook page notifying residents about an elderly man with dementia who had left this home and was missing for several hours.
Madison, Miss. native saves a missing man from freezing temperatures
Katie and her family were concerned about the whole situation as temperatures outside had plummeted and their neighbor was already missing for a few hours. She later told the media she couldn’t sleep with the knowledge that he was wandering off in the cold.
“I immediately went to my parents and was like, ‘I’m not going to be able to go to sleep until this person is found,’” Qualls said. “I was just thinking about if that was my grandfather or somebody. It just didn’t sit right with me.”
She decided that it was time to step up the search efforts and told her parents she wanted to join the search, despite the freezing cold temperatures. Katie and the rest of the community screened the vicinity to find the missing man’s trace. A helicopter was engaged but the search had yielded no results by that point.
While the rest of the search party focused their attention on the neighborhood and the nearby area, Katie had a different idea about where the missing man could be found.
“The house I usually go to, their door was locked, and it’s never locked,” she said. “So, I walked around and I’m feeling like this is good. I hear something, I turn to my left and he’s laying on the floor on his side, backed up into the bushes. He blended in with the mulch, so you wouldn’t have seen him unless you actually walked into the bushes.”
Katie saves the day and reunites the missing man with his wife
Upon finding her missing neighbor, Katie was immediately faced with a problem of how to approach him. He was mistrustful and visibly confused about who Katie was and asked her not to hurt him. She then described how she managed to persuade him to come with her.
“I was like, ‘I’m here to help you, I know your son, I know your grandkids,’” she told the media. “I don’t know how I picked him up but I picked his whole body up and carried him out.”
Katie stayed with the man after she informed the police that she found him, to help him feel safe and be in the company of someone he could trust. He was later reunited with his wife who was thankful to Katie for her help in finding her husband.
“It was all God”
Katie later recalled what was she thinking about when she got home after the search had ended.
“I realized it was just all God,” she explained. “He led me there. I truly believe He made that happen for a reason. With all the stuff that’s happened in my life recently, I feel like He has a plan for me and I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s going to be helping people.”
This story had a happy ending due to Katie’s selfless efforts and her determination to help her neighbors and his family at their time of need. She is the hero that every community needs.
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