British Paralympian Found Alive After Traveling to Las Vegas for WrestleMania
Sam Ruddock, a 35-year-old British Paralympian, was located, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said on Monday, April 28.
"A missing person report was filed on April 24, 2025. Through the course of the investigation, the individual has been located safe," the LVMPD told PEOPLE in a statement.
Lucy Hatton, a close friend of Ruddock's, also confirmed on Instagram that her friend is safe.
"Sam has been found," she wrote in an Instagram Story post. "He is physically well and we will now work on getting him home safely. It's been a tremendously hard time and from the bottom of my heart, thank you everyone."
Hatton said Ruddock was found "because of the volume of noise made and the awareness everyone created."
Ruddock, who has cerebral palsy and has competed in cycling, shot put and sprinting events, arrived in the U.S. on April 13 to attend a WrestleMania event, Sky News and The Guardian reported at the time. He was last heard from three days later on April 16, per the BBC.
Hatton told the BBC she drove the Paralympian to the airport on April 13 and understood he was staying at a hostel before attending WrestleMania.
Ruddock had not "been in the right head space" lately, though his disappearance was "really, really out of character," Hatton said.
"The concerning part is he went silent from the 16th and because he is such a big presence on social media, people were quite fast to notice," she said, per Sky News.
Hatton said Las Vegas police were treating Ruddock as a missing person. Lincolnshire Police also told PEOPLE that they have an active missing person investigation underway for Ruddock.
PEOPLE contacted British Cycling and WrestleMania Monday for further comment but did not immediately hear back.
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Hatton and Ruddock's mother Fran told the BBC they contacted the hostel where Ruddock was staying, and they were told the man hadn't checked out on time or taken his belongings.
Normally, Fran said, she'd speak to her "very sociable" son every day. She urged anyone in the United States or the United Kingdom with information about Ruddock's whereabouts to come forward — "anything at all to piece together the gaps," she told BBC.
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