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The early June phone call was the last time the family heard from LaFever, and his sister reported him missing on Monday, the sheriff's department said. A telephone message left at the LaFevers' home in Colorado Springs wasn't immediately returned. Gardner's training in searching for people with autism taught him they are naturally drawn to water, so the helicopter search focused on the Escalante River, the department said. The helicopter team spotted LaFever Thursday afternoon, sitting in the Escalante River about five miles from Lake Powell, weakly waving at the aircraft. Gardner was dumbfounded when LaFever identified himself because of the long odds of finding anyone in that country, the sheriff's department said. "In all my career I have never seen someone so emaciated," Gardner was quoted as saying in the sheriff's department release. "I could not believe that he was alive, and feel certain that in another 24 hours he would not have been alive." Gardner didn't immediately return a phone message late Thursday. LaFever was so weak that he couldn't stand, but he was so eager for human contact that at first he would not stop talking long enough to eat or drink anything, the sheriff's department said. He eventually took a drink and ate a granola bar.
[Associated
Press;
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