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Family Filled with Gratitude After Borunda is Found Safe and Sound
Family Filled with Gratitude After Borunda is Found Safe and Sound 1/16/13
CBS 7 News Reporter
January 16, 2013
tguinn@cbs7.com
Midland - Eighty-year-old Jose Borunda has been found safe and sound. After a long night and morning of searching, family members were able to bring him home this afternoon. They are filled with nothing but gratitude as they learned finding their loved one was a community wide effort.
What could have been a family's worst nightmare, had a happy ending for the family of Jose Borunda.
Police say Borunda wondered miles from his home to a ranch north of town. They say he spent the night in a field. But tonight he is home safe and sound this evening after a night full of terror when he wandered away from his home into the freezing cold.
"Once we didn't find anything, we took off in our cars and that’s when we got scared," Geny Gutierrez, Borunda’s niece said.
Not only did Borunda's family and law enforcement head out looking for him, but members of the community were in on the search as well.
"The community is extremely helpful in these type of situations," Lieutenant BJ Land with the Midland Police Department said.
One of those people was Sunney Johnson.
"My husband and I felt compelled to run over to that area to help out and look around. We did that for several hours with other people," Johnson said.
Johnson relied on her scanner she has on her smart phone to keep up with the search, which led her to the Stripes convenience store on North Big Spring Street.
“He was alive, he was wonderful. I was just relieved. That's all it was, utmost relief. I just knew he was ok," Johnson said. "I couldn't even drive away for a while because I was just so relieved he was found. I could only imagine the family."
Relief is just one word Borunda's family used to describe the feeling when they got the call he was found and that he was ok.
"It was awesome, we were just really scared and sad…just worried," Gutierrez said. "It was really good to know that someone else was caring about him and trying to find him."
The family of Borunda can rest easy tonight knowing that he's home to stay.
Gutierrez says that the family is looking into ways to keep this from happening again.
So how far was Borunda from his home?
We mapped out the distance from his home at the Ashton Way Apartments on Neely Ave to where he was found off of Highway 349 in north Midland.
Borunda traveled nearly seven miles from home in 21 degree weather.