By Cal Bryant

Special to the News-Herald

A Suffolk man who went missing late Sunday afternoon in North Carolina was found unharmed by mid-afternoon Monday following a massive ground and air search near the St. John community.

Hertford County Sheriff Juan Vaughan reported that 77-year-old Dr. Aubrey Morgan was found deep in a large tract of woods he owns off NC 561 West. North Carolina PERT (Prison Emergency Response Team), a highly skilled unit trained in searching for escaped inmates, located Morgan around 2:30 p.m.

“This is great news to share,” Vaughan said. “We feared the worst in this case, but we never gave up the search.”

Vaughan praised the efforts of roughly 100 individuals that took part in the search.

“Great teamwork,” he said. “It’s situations such as this one that all the hours of training come into play. Everyone came together — law enforcement, Hertford and Gates County Emergency Management, the NC Forest Service, EMS, the volunteer fire departments here in our county, tracking dogs from over at Caledonia Prison, the State Highway Patrol helicopter searching Sunday, well into the night, and came back today, and then NC PERT comes in with about 50 members. They were all well skilled and the entire search was well organized.”

Vaughan also thanked the American Red Cross for sending a “lunch wagon” to the command center to feed the hungry horde of searchers, many of whom spent the night in the woods.

He added that friends of Dr. Morgan accompanying him on the weekend trip to Hertford County also aided in the search.

According to Hertford County Emergency Management Director Chris Smith, Morgan set out on his ATV around 4 p.m. on Sunday. When he failed to return to his cabin, his friends contacted the local authorities.

“We started searching around 8 p.m. Sunday and have been here ever since,” Smith told said late Monday morning.

Smith added that the search area encompassed the majority of Morgan’s 700 to 800 acres of land, most of which is wooded. Morgan’s ATV was discovered Sunday night, stuck in the mud, but he was nowhere to be found.

“You’re talking about six square miles of nothing but woods,” Smith noted.

Smith said Morgan was found roughly 600 feet from the deserted ATV.

“We searched that area thoroughly on Sunday night and on Monday,” Smith said. “We believe he was on the move the whole time, basically coming back to near the area where the ATV was.”

Smith added that Morgan did not appear to be physically injured, but he did seem “out of sorts.” Morgan was taken to Vidant Roanoke-Chowan Hospital for observation.

Morgan, a veterinarian, is well-known among avid outdoorsmen for his love of bird dogs and field trials. His highly trained bird dogs have won numerous field trial championships across the nation.

He purchased the tract of land in Hertford County in 1989, carefully developing it to be the now permanent home of the Virginia Amateur Field Trial Association.