A vacationer, from Normandy, aged 69 and sought since the evening of January 13 in Guadeloupe, was found “weakened, disoriented and not having all his wits” Wednesday morning “by a hiker”, in the sector of Sofaïa in Sainte-Rose, indicates the gendarmerie. “He was found near the waterfall, in the wild,” Captain Rachid Boumlil, second in command of the Pointe-à-Pitre Gendarmerie company, told AFP.
An important research facility
“A hiker heard a noise and saw this man emerge from nature and come towards her to be rescued”. He was evacuated to the CHU without being able to provide an explanation for the days spent in the forest.
After the alert, launched Thursday evening by the wife of the disappeared, who went for a walk alone in this fairly frequented wooded area, the gendarmes had deployed significant resources. “The helicopter” and “multiple people on foot, soldiers from the gendarmerie, hikers, trail runners having been on the multiple tracks up to fairly large distances, dog teams from the fire brigade on Friday and Saturday”, as well as “Hikers” sensitized in the car park at the start of the track crisscrossed the area daily, explained the captain.
Plenty of water
“He was in the area where we imagined him” and there was “plenty of water thanks to the waterfall and various streams”, he specifies. “It is difficult to understand today that we did not meet this person earlier who could still move” and his hearing should “allow us to better understand the reasoning in this type of situation, to better guide research”, added he added.
The man, who “was not able to answer” the questions of the gendarmes “and to have a clear speech”, will be heard “later, to try to determine what was his journey” concluded the captain . An investigation had been opened for “worrying disappearance”.