A missing Australian man has been found alive after surviving on wild mushrooms and dam water for three weeks.
Robert Weber (58) was last seen on January 6 leaving the Kilkivan Hotel-Motel, 130 miles north of Brisbane, Queensland, in his car with his dog.
Search efforts were called off earlier this week, but he was discovered by a local politician and his wife yesterday.
Police reported that Mr Weber was safe and well, despite “suffering exposure to the elements”.
He had become disorientated in the heat, but managed to stay close to a dam. “He left on foot and became lost and remained at a dam where he survived by sleeping on the ground, drinking dam water and eating mushrooms,” Queensland police said in a statement.
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Subscriber only Member for Gympie Tony Perrett was in the right place at the right time when he and wife Michele drove over a crest in to find missing man Robert Weber waving frantically at them. After losing his way home from the Kilkivan Hotel on January 6, Mr Weber s car became bogged in a very remote part of Mr and Mrs Perrett s Kilkivan property. Our musterers were out mustering a paddock at the back end of the property, which is about 15 000 acres, and they found the vehicle wedged in some rocks, Mr Perrett said. Mr Perrett immediately alerted police to the vehicle, who alongside SES personnel and the Lifeflight Helicopter, launched a widespread search of the land.
Member for Gympie Tony Perrett finds missing man Robert Weber on his property by the side of a dam
SunSunday 24
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SunSunday 24
Member for Gympie Tony Perrett (left) found Robert Weber by the side of a dam.
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After days of searching their southern Queensland cattle property for missing man Robert Weber, local MP Tony Perrett and his wife Michelle found the 58-year-old sitting under a tree.
Key points:
Mr Weber was last seen on January 6, the day his car got bogged
Gympie MP Tony Perrett and his wife Michelle found him by the side of a dam
Police search the Tansey property near Mudlo Road. Pictures: Ch 7 Sunshine Coast
An intensive land and air search began that included the use of LifeFlight helicopters, police and SES workers.
“Everyone’s doing their bit to try and locate this gentlemen,” Mr Perrett told Ch 7 Sunshine Coast yesterday.
He said some of his workers who were mustering on the western side of the property had found the abandoned sedan the pervious day. Searchers on a LifeFlight helicopter scour the Tansey bushland for Robert Weber Pictures: Ch 7 Sunshine Coast
“He got stuck there – he got wedged on top of rocks and couldn’t get out and then presumably spent some time around the vehicle…(when he)…wasn t found and then decided to head off,” Mr Perrett said.