Update June 12, 2020: Retired Firefighter Merlin Turner was found alive Thursday and reunited with his family, according to Fox40.
A family friend said Turner was found after someone reported they saw him eating at their diner. The friend said Turner did not know he was reported missing or how many days had gone by, and that he was wearing the same clothes he was wearing when he was last seen on Saturday.
The friend credited social media with helping bring Turner home.
Original story:
By Janelle Foskett
EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. – A retired firefighter missing since Saturday reportedly struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from his years in the fire service.
Merlin Turner, 61, had dinner with his best friend, John Havenhill, on Saturday – and no one has seen Turner since, reported Fox40. Havenhill shared that Turner discussed some “calls that were bugging him, this COVID situation,” and that he was struggling with being cooped up in the house.
Havenhill described an incident years ago when Turner pulled two firefighters from a building, but they perished. “It’s haunted him ever since,” he said. “And it’s one of the many calls that him and I talk about together.”
Turner’s daughter Chaz Green reported her father missing on Monday after realizing that no one had talked to him since Saturday.
An El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office detective assigned to the case shared with Green that Turner’s cell phone pinged off a tower in Folsom on Sunday morning, prompting Green to organize a search for her father there.
The Sheriff’s Office and law enforcement in the area have been advised to be on the lookout for Turner and his silver Dodge Ram pickup.