Indian Hills resident Alan Aguilar was getting ready to play paintball with his son, Cameron, and friends at about 1 p.m. Sunday when he saw an elderly woman crossing his property.
"I noticed the lady walking through my backyard," he said. "I asked her if she needed some help, but she responded that she was fine, and that she was going to James Lee Park, then she took off."
Aguilar said he didn't think much about the encounter and went out to play his game.
Not long afterwards, the paintballers saw helicopters circling the area.
"We thought, 'uh oh, they're coming to get us,' so we broke up the game early," he said on Wednesday. "After it had gone on for a couple of hours, we went out to see what the commotion was. My son caught wind they were searching for an elderly lady. That's when I thought it might be the woman I saw earlier."
The helicopters were looking for 76-year-old Ada Cordero, who her daughter says suffers from Alzheimer's and has a habit of going for long walks.
Aguilar walked to the park where Douglas County Search & Rescue set up their command post. On his way there with his sons, he said he spotted a little flash of red through the brush.
"Something caught my eye," he said. "I noticed a dot of red as I was walking along."
Aguilar told searchers where and when he last saw the woman, and then on the walk back decided to investigate what he'd seen.
"I said let's take a look over where I saw the red dot, and as we got closer, she popped her head up," he said.
Aguilar estimated it was about 20 yards from where the command post was set up.
Aguilar, who has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years, said it appeared she walked through a gully and then fell down into a pocket.
"You could see her if she was sitting up," he said. "She fell into a pocket and couldn't get back. If she sat up at the right moment, they could have seen her."
Aguilar said it turns out that his daughter went to school with the woman's granddaughter.
