Missing 21-year-old man found alive, in "very rough condition"

AUSTIN, Texas - After nearly 60 hours, a 21-year-old man reported missing over the weekend on Rainey Street has been found alive.

Christian Pugh was found on the other side of Lady Bird Lake near the Congress Avenue bridge in  "very rough condition." Pugh was found deep in the brush along the hike and bike trail, an area not easy for those on the trail to spot just passing by. He was conscious and taken to the hospital.

“When we located him he was in rough shape but we were able to work with law enforcement and get the ambulance requested immediately,” said Casey England with Travis County Search and Rescue.

Pugh was reported missing around 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning after hitting up Rainey Street. His fliers fill the area as the hours he was last seen continued to grow. Multiple agencies like the volunteer group Travis County Search and Rescue assisted in eventually locating Pugh Tuesday morning alive.

“We deployed a variety of teams throughout the area and as one team was beginning their search they spoke to some local people that were in the area who reported having seen something,” said England.
 
According to police, Pugh was last seen at Clive on Rainey Street but this isn't near where he was found on the south side of Lady Bird Lake, a five-minute drive.

“How he managed to get from one to the other who knows,” said England. “It would have been difficult for a casual passerby to come upon him. It really took a combined effort of talking to some of the locals in the area and those combined search skills to make sure that all came together.”
 
Last year around this time, a similar incident happened on Rainey. 25-year-old Martin Gutierrez was reported missing after going to the popular bar district. Crews spent days searching for him, eventually finding his body in the lake near the hike and bike trail.

England said this incident helped prepare them for finding Pugh.

“On that one, we came out and searched for a while for him and we were able to take the lessons learned from that particular search and apply them to this search which helped us in finding this gentleman that much faster,” said England.
 
So far police are still investigating how Pugh ended up more than a mile away and across the lake from where he was last seen.