Editors note: This story has been updated to reflect that Hazel Clark has been found
A New Brunswick senior who had not been seen for more than 48 hours was located safely on Tuesday evening.
Ground search and rescue crews spent much of Tuesday searching for 87-year-old Hazel Clark, who was last seen Sunday in Havelock, N.B.
Clark’s daughter, Mary Black, confirmed that her mother had been located at approximately 6:15 p.m just off the trail of a dirt road that had reportedly been searched several times by vehicles.
A search dog assisted in locating Clark.
Black said her mother was alert but a little confused. She had lost her glasses, a shoe and her teeth and her face was swollen but did not have any major injuries.
Clark has since been transported to hospital and Black says the family is “so happy she has been found.”
WATCH: A search for a missing 87-year-old New Brunswick woman entered its third day on Tuesday. Shelley Steeves has more.
READ MORE: RCMP looking for missing 87-year-old in Havelock, N.B.
Clark’s friends and family were expecting the worst.
“Things come to an end at some point in everyone’s life,” said her daughter Minnie Estabrooks. “This is not the way I thought this was going to be for her.”
Estabrooks believed her mom may have wandered off into the woods nearby — possibly confused by what could be early onset dementia.
“She has got to be disoriented or confused. I don’t know what has distracted her to the point that she would not come back,” said Estabrooks, adding that her mother is in good physical health.
That boded well for her survival, according to Phillip Howe from Greater Fundy Ground Search and Rescue, as does the weather.
“We have found people with similar conditions four days later alive and well,” said Howe.
A stretch of cars and emergency vehicles lined the dirt road outside Clark’ s home on Tuesday. Approximately 50 volunteers and several search and rescue teams from across the province were desperately trying to locate her.
Howe said the search was expanded to a 10-kilometre radius in the woods around her family farm. EMO members are using long-range drones to search from the sky.
RCMP Staff-Sgt. Dale Morgan said it’s believed that Clark left her home on her own accord, but doesn’t suspect foul play. Police are asking the public to be on the lookout.
“There is always hope that at some point when she is out and about that she wanders onto the road somewhere and somebody sees her and picks her up,” said Morgan.
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Down at a local café where Clark would sometimes meet her friends for coffee, her friend Shirley Keith said she was fraught with worry.
“She wasn’t dressed warm to be out walking. I understand she just had a top on, so I don’t know we have just been praying for her,” said Keith.
The local legion has taken charge of feeding volunteers. The family is overcome by the show of love and support from the entire community
“I can’t believe the people that have come and brought food and are here and willing to stay and help. We are very, very, very thankful” said Estabrooks.
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