Special is the word Matt Pierce used to describe his feelings after he and his dog RBI (pronounced Ribby) located a missing 72-year-old man near the Cross Creek Ranch community in Fulshear.
Mohammad Hadi had been missing for more than a day after he went for a walk around 5 p.m. Sunday. Hadi's family had recently moved to Cross Creek and the grandfather -- who likes to take walks -- hadn't learned his way around the neighborhood yet.
"He just makes a wrong turn and keep walking, thinking he's going to get closer and closer," says his son-in-law Abdel Najjar. "Unfortunately, he ends up lost."
He was lost for 25 hours, in fact, until a large search group, led by Fulshear police and a number of volunteers including Pierce and his friend Alex Parshall, went looking for Hadi. After getting off work, Pierce searched an undeveloped section of Cross Creek with RBI and felt he was on to something when he came across an open gate.
"It didn't seem right that there should be an open gate and so walked through that about a half-mile, mile, I don't remember," Pierce said. "And there he was."
Hadi suffered from dehydration and will spend the night at Memorial Hermann near Katy for observation.
Pierce is thankful he took part in the search and said he did so because of a friend who went missing in the San Antonio area just last year.
"Knowing what you feel of missing somebody and not knowing where they're at, that's hard. And to know that somebody else is going through that and you can take time out of your day ... to help," Pierce said, "it's the right thing to do."