“These guys don’t know us from Adam, but what they did made the difference,” Tim Gundlach, Jacob Bates’ uncle, tells PEOPLE
NEED TO KNOW
- After Jacob Bates, a 24-year-old man with autism, disappeared in River Legacy Park in Arlington, Texas, officials began their search, then put in a call for volunteers —and things took a turn after David Dedwylder and Chance Sauser got involved
- When they found him 12 hours later, Bates said he wasn’t scared, but he was cold
- “These guys don’t know us from Adam, but what they did made the difference,” Jacob’s uncle Tim Gundlach tells PEOPLE
If not for the kindness of two strangers, the story of a young man who went missing in a massive park filled with wild animals and dropping temperatures could have ended in another tragic headline.
“We feel like it’s a miracle,” Tim Gundlach, Jacob Bates’ uncle, tells PEOPLE. “These guys don’t know us from Adam, but what they did made the difference.”
It happened in a flash. Jacob, 24, was riding bicycles on the trail with his dad Scot in the 1,300 acre River Legacy Park in Arlington, Texas, on Monday, Feb. 23, when Jacob’s dad briefly lost sight of him…