For whatever reason, Frank Ott wasn’t satisfied with waiting for a ride home at the Marathon Gas Station in Bethlehem, W.Va.
The 85-year-old Moundsville resident was involved in a Tuesday afternoon accident along Interstate 470 near the hilltop village, and after his vehicle was towed, he was transported to the gas station by an officer of the Bethlehem Police Department. The officer, Rusty Jewell, reported Ott appeared lucid and aware of his situation, and first responders reported the same.
For some reason, though, Ott walked away.
“When our search began, we didn’t have a lot to go on,” said Ohio County Sheriff Tom Howard. “In the beginning, we couldn’t find anyone who saw anything, and no one could tell us that they had seen him along a street. At first, we thought he may have walked down to Elm Grove, but there was absolutely no sign of him.
“That’s when our focus changed to all of the other possibilities, and that included that he walked off into one of the wooded areas,” he said. “Immediately, we expanded the footprint of our search, got the drones in the air, and covered as much ground as we could.”
Bethlehem is a village where most of its residents live along two ridges, one along Chapel Hill Road and the other along Ridgecrest Road, but through the years neighborhoods have been created in other areas.
“And that Marathon station is right in the middle of all of it,” Howard said. “At first, we thought he might stay along one of the major roads to get wherever he was going, but again, that didn’t check out. Then we thought he might have asked someone for some help, and that’s when we started knocking on doors.”
Left Turn or Right Turn?
When the mystery of the missing Moundsville man was presented to Lou Vargo, the director of the Wheeling-Ohio County Emergency Management Agency, the first decision he made was to start from the very beginning.
“In a situation like this one, it’s really the only thing you can do,” he said. “You go back to the beginning so you can figure out the decisions he had to make along the way. When you do that, though, you have to consider every single option and check on all of them to rule out which ones were not taken.
“We knew Mr. Ott had not walked along Bethlehem Boulevard in either direction, so that left Chapel Road. From there, you have to check to see if he walked out to the bridge that goes over Interstate 470 or if he took a right onto Village Drive,” Vargo explained. “That’s just an example of how we had to look at those things so we could narrow down the area where he might have been located.”
As it turned out, Ott had taken that right onto Village Drive, a roadway that takes motorists to a crowded neighborhood with nice homes, an apartment complex, and many twists and turns. All of it, however, is surrounded by wooded areas and rough terrain.
“My theory is that he left Village Drive and took Dogwood Lane to reach the woods,” Vargo explained. “Dogwood Lane isn’t paved, but it’s level, and it would have given him the shortest path to where he was found. The other way off of Westgate Drive would have meant he likely knew where he was going, but his family told us Mr. Ott was not familiar with Bethlehem at all.”
Crack of Dawn
Howard does not know if Frank Ott slept overnight, but what the sheriff does know is that he didn’t sleep well.
“I just wanted to get back out there,” Howard said. “When you have a situation like that one, you don’t want to stop because you know every minute means something. We knew his age, so we were anxious to get him to a safe environment instead of out in the woods that had a really steep terrain. Something really bad could have happened with any one of his steps.
“When I spoke to Frank’s family in the morning, I told them we would bring him home. All of us were pretty determined,” he said. “We were prepared to be out there all day. As long as it took.”
Vargo believes once Ott began trekking along a stream, he could see the opening at the bottom where the stream is diverted into a pipe that flows under the J.B. Chambers/I-470 Sports Complex.
“I also think he probably stopped somewhere in the woods to sleep for a couple of hours after it got dark,” the EMA director said. “From that gas station to where we found him was a pretty long walk for anyone, let alone an 85-year-old man.”
Ott almost made it, too, before rescue workers introduced themselves first.
“They found him about 600 yards away from the bottom near the Wheeling University ballfield, and he probably would have made it all the way down,” Howard said. “You know these kinds of situations usually don’t turn out with positive results, so thank goodness this one did. We were pretty determined, and it all worked out.”
Not only were Ohio County deputies searching, but personnel with the State Police, the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office and EMA, the Wetzel County EMA, volunteer fire departments from Bethlehem, Mount Olivet, and Calley Grove, the Wheeling Fire Department, the W.Va. Department of Corrections, and the U.S. Air Force all were involved.
That is why Vargo posted the following on the Wheeling-Ohio County Facebook page:
“We started the search for the missing man 23 hours ago, and to find him alive and healthy is a testament of the dedication of this group of men and women. It was truly a pleasure to tell the family this team found their loved one. We said we weren’t going home without him this morning, and we kept our promise.”
“For an 85-year-old man to come out of those woods with only a bump on his head is a miracle to me,” Vargo said. “It’s those kind of moments that someone in this line of work will remember for the rest of our lives because you know you did everything you possibly could do, and it worked. I know everyone who was involved is very proud.”
