Volunteers recognized for helping find missing 82-year-old Ann Arbor man
Hundreds of volunteers joined the Ann Arbor Police Department to search for 82-year-old Dr. Ralph Yang, who had been missing for two days when they began searching in late June.
Among them were Ann Arbor resident Ben Osenbaugh and his dog Dolly, who police say first found Yang lying in a creek off the side of the road in the north part of town.
CBS News Detroit's Jack Springgate spoke to this hero one-on-one to learn why Osenbaugh and Dolly are getting some special recognition from the city Tuesday night.
Osenbaugh said it felt really good when he and Dolly found Yang, and newly released body cam footage shows the exact moments when police arrived to carry him to safety.
"You don't necessarily believe you're going to run across the person you're looking for in a lot of these efforts," the Ann Arbor resident said.
Roughly 50 hours after Yang was last seen, Osenbaugh and his dog Dolly defied their expectations when searching for him.
"It was kind of way down there in the creek, so that's kind of where I went in to explore a little more, and when we got down here, he was lying halfway in the creek," he said.
Osenbaugh says he immediately called the police, who showed up within minutes to rescue Yang, and now, weeks later, he still says it's hard to believe that he was in the right place at the right time.
"I think I'm still putting it all together, but it's a good feeling, and mostly the end goal of Yang being found and still alive — that's the most important thing," he said.
He says it gave him a new perspective on how the police and community can come together to do good.
"When I think back on this experience, it was really great to see all these people come forward with a call to action, and the police department, they were very inspiring that we were going to find Dr. Yang, and that's what we ended up doing," Osenbaugh said.
Osenbaugh and Dolly both earned special recognition from the Ann Arbor Police Department on Tuesday night, as they also thanked the hundreds of other volunteers who came out to successfully search for Dr. Yang.
