82-year-old with dementia disappeared — an hour later, a dog and her owner made a life-saving discovery

The man had gone on a walk and didn't come back. The police had been looking for him for 2 days.

PUBLISHED JUL 2, 2025

(L) A man walking with his dog near a water body. (R) An old man in an outdoor space. Representative Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Elena Medoks; vandervelden

A volunteer knew that an 82-year-old man with Parkinson's Disease had gone missing in his community. However, he didn't know that he would be the one to find the man and aid in his rescue. The man had been missing for 48 hours after he went for a walk on a Monday and didn't return home. The police looked for him during that time, but had no luck in finding him. They were worried that an old man was out and lost during such a hot week and were thankful to find the man, Ralph Yang, alive and well, per ABC-affiliate WXYZ Detroit.

A man walking with his dog in an outdoor space. Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Oscar Wong

The police were already searching on the ground and decided to seek help from Ann Arbor's Community Partnership and Outreach Team. They also used Michigan State Police Helicopters to make the rescue as fast as possible. The local community members sent out a search party a couple of days after Yang went missing. They searched around the Forsythe Middle School area in Ann Arbor, close to the location where Yang was last seen. The volunteers even went door to door, hoping that someone would have seen the man. That is when Ben Osenbaugh spotted a person in a creek while walking with his dog, Dolly. He wondered if it was the missing man the community had been looking for, per Michigan Live.

A distressed old man sitting on a park bench. Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Ivan Pantic

"He was lying facing away from me, so I was approaching him from the back of his head. He just looked like someone really young, like much younger," Osenbaugh recounted. After a closer look, the 39-year-old was sure that the person was indeed Yang. "I could see his face. His eyes were moving. He was trying to move his mouth. So at that time, I knew he was alive." The man had been missing since 7:15 PM on June 23 in Pin Oak and White Oak in the northwest of Ann Arbor. Yang had formerly been a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan. Osenbaugh and his dog found the man at 9 PM on Wednesday, June 25, about half a mile away from where he had been seen the last time.

via GIPHY

Osenbuagh had heard about the disappearance and the search party getting organized, so he decided to join in. He was quite surprised after looking at the sheer number of volunteers that had turned up for Yang. "Cars were circling around trying to find parking. There were just people crowded around where the officers were talking and giving directions. It felt like a good portion of that community showed up and were trying to help." The man used to run in the area where Yang went missing and decided to search the back trails with Dolly. "So I started walking off the road and started kind of looking down into an area where the creek was and just so happened, I walked right into the right spot where I had some visibility."

Once he found the man and checked on him, he called 911. The old man had no visible injuries and was able to talk to the people present. He was taken to the University of Michigan hospital and was reported to be awake and talking by Chris Page, a spokesperson for the Ann Arbor Police. Yang is expected to make a full recovery. It wasn't known if the man had fallen down or was in the water purposefully. Osenbaugh was happy to be a part of finding Yang and appreciated the police officers and the community members for organizing a search party. "All it takes is one person to get that news and show up. You never know what could happen." Around 60 volunteers showed up, according to the City of Ann Arbor - Police Department's Facebook post.