A woman who was missing has been reunited with her family thanks to the extraordinary efforts of a Clearwater police officer.
The woman disappeared for hours from the Clearwater area and was found almost four miles away in Dunedin.
Martha Santiago, 73, was out for a walk in July and ventured off the path to find shelter when it started raining.
“And now, where do I go if I am already lost? I was lost,” she said.
Despite an extensive search involving helicopters and K9 units, she remained undiscovered until Officer Ivan Hernandez Perez took it upon himself to continue the search after his shift had ended.
“I saw the photo of the missing woman, and she reminded me of my aunt, and it pulled on my heart,” he said.
The four-year officer ended up finding Santiago miles down the road in Dunedin.
“I checked this complex down here and drove in the back and saw her underneath an awning and it was raining,” Hernandez Perez said.
“When I saw the police arriving, I thought, ‘They’re going to take me to jail,’ but I didn’t do anything,” Santiago recalled. “He told me, ‘No, we’re going to take you home.’ ‘Oh, thank you.’
Santiago is staying with her daughter and does not know the area at all.
“I couldn’t have gone home with peace of mind knowing she was still out there, alone, for so many hours. I began looking for her nearly seven hours after the initial search,” Hernandez Perez explained.
Santiago said she was so grateful to be reunited with her family after being out in the cold rain, all alone.
“I said, ‘Thank you so much for coming to get me home.’ And he said, ‘Yes, don’t worry, you’re safe now,'” she said.
Hernandez Perez said reuniting the woman with her family is one of the biggest highlights of his career.
