By TABITHA EVANS MOORE | Editor-in-Chief

MOORE COUNTY — For 12 scary hours on Friday, November 28 and into early Saturday morning, an 80-year-old Moore County man with dementia lay injured on a steep Petty Hollow incline as an army of Metro Moore County Sheriff’s Department, Moore County Volunteer Fire Department, Jack Daniel’s Fire Brigade, Bedford County EMA, Franklin County EMA, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, TEMA, Tims Ford Park Rangers, and citizen volunteers frantically but methodically searched for him. Overnight lows in Moore County hovered at 23 degrees on Friday night.

Finally, at 3:50 a.m., Sherriff Tyler Hatfield and Investigator Brandon Thomas located the man with the help of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s fixed wing aircraft, which circled the area looking for a heat signature.

According to those on scene, it was an emotional moment as Sheriff Hatfield and Thomas’s silhouettes could be seen on infrared throwing off their jackets and removing their toboggans to wrap around Clyde Farless to warm the elderly man while they radioed for crews to move in so Farless could be transported to an area hospital, where he currently remans.

Farless rescued at 3:50 a.m.

According to Metro Sheriff’s Deputy Maygan Silavong, one of the first on scene, Farless lives with non-family members along Petty Hollow Road in the northwest area of Moore County. They noticed the man missing around 3:45 p.m. According to Silavong, they were already searching for Farless on side-by-sides when local authorities arrived. Deputy Silavong also mentioned that an impromptu group of 40 local firefighters from both the Moore County Volunteer Fire Department and Jack Daniel’s Fire Brigade, who heard the call come over the radio, were already on scene when she arrived. She says community members also dropped off an army of ATVs to help local authorities with the search.

For those unfamiliar with local topography, Petty Hollow sits in the northwest corner of Moore County in the Charity Community near the Lincoln County and Bedford County lines. Its steep, rocky terrain surrounded by dense tree cover.

“That terrain and undergrowth is about as dense as I’ve ever seen,” Sheriff Hatfield says.

According to a press release, dispatch logged the official call at 4:12 p.m. – stating that Farless had last been seen around 3:25 p.m. wearing black sweatpants and a black jacket. That detail would become important. Once the TBI fixed wing infrared spotted his heat signature, local officials struggled temporarily to spot him because he blended into the surroundings in the pitch dark.

By 4:22 p.m. Metro Moore Search and Rescue canines Hoss and Dottie were on scene. They were soon joined by Bedford County EMA canine Bruno and Franklin County EMA canine Ruger to grid-search the area while other officials searched the man’s home and all nearby structures. Sheriff Hatfield says canines picked up the man’s scent earlier in the day but could not triangulate his exact location.

From 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., every available local public safety official as well as community volunteers including firefighter spouses searched for Farless with no luck.

In true Lynchburg form, Moore County Interim Fire Chief Hunter Case’s mom, Pam Case, also showed up around 10 p.m. with soup and hot chocolate – trying to keep the team warm and fed, according to Sheriff Hatfield.

Around 10 p.m., local authorities received a tip from a local mail carrier that she’d seen someone resembling Farless on Warren Hollow Road, according to Chief Deputy Shane Taylor.

By 1 a.m. the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued a Silver Alert for Farless as local crews had exhausted what they could do on foot. Frustrated, cold, and concerned whether Farless could make it through the night, local crews were forced to pause their efforts until first light. Sheriff Hatfield says he and EMA Director Jason Deal were also anticipating a huge community volunteer response, which would require additional personnel and logistics.

At 2 a.m. Sheriff Hatfield made the call to scale back the ground search to allow crews to rest, warm up and re-establish search efforts at daybreak while he and Brandon Thomas, Hunter Case and Linford Miller remained on scene. Sheriff Hatfield says based on the weather, the health of the Farless, and the terrain, he feared that by daybreak the mission would turn from a search and rescue to a recovery mission.

However, TBI fixed wing aircraft – equipped with advanced technology, including high-tech cameras for surveillance from a distance and infrared cameras – left a Nashville airport and began flying over the area at 3:30 a.m.

That resource had been unavailable earlier in the day because two other similar missing person’s cases also happened on Friday, according to Sheriff Hatfield. Twenty minutes after arriving on scene, they directed Hatfield and Thomas to Farless’s exactly location on a steep incline on the Petty Hollow property.

“We found him curled up in the fetal position, nestled against a dark log, and feared the worst. Then we saw his leg move,” Sheriff Hatfield says.

Hatfield and Thomas, found Farless conscious and responsive about 250 yards behind the house where he lives. They gently loaded the man onto their ATVs while Case and Miller maneuvered the ambulance as close as possible to their location. All four men carried out Farless on foot and loaded him into the waiting ambulance, which whisked him to Harton Hospital where he remains in stable condition. •

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