Missing British Paralympian Sam Ruddock found safe in Las Vegas
(NewsNation) — A British Paralympian who went missing earlier this month while visiting Las Vegas has been found safe, according to police.
Sam Ruddock was visiting the U.S. to attend WrestleMania. His good friend, Lucy Hatton, told British news outlets that Ruddock, 35, of Warwickshire, arrived in Las Vegas on April 13.
She and Ruddock's family grew worried a few days later when they could not reach him. They reported him missing to both American and British authorities.
British Paralympian missing in Las Vegas: Reports
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told People magazine that the missing person report was filed on Friday.
'Through the course of the investigation, the individual has been located safe,' police officials said.
Hatton confirmed the news on Instagram.
'Sam has been found,' she wrote. '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.'
Ruddock, who has cerebral palsy, is a well-known Paralympian who has competed in shot put, cycling and sprinting events. According to the BBC, Hatton said the athlete's disappearance was 'really, really out of character.'
Hatton told the news outlet that Ruddock had not 'been in quite the right head space' before his trip. When his activity on social media stopped on April 16, it 'started to raise flags,' she said.
That concern grew when Ruddock's loved ones contacted the hostel where he stayed in Las Vegas and learned that he had not checked out as planned. Ruddock's belongings were found in his room.
Details of where Ruddock was found were not released.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
37 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Brothers bring boxing back to Fenway after 70 years and hope to revitalize the sport in Boston
For the first time in nearly 70 years, boxing is returning to Boston's famed Fenway Park. The 11-fight card is the culmination of years of effort by twin brothers and longtime public schoolteachers who grew up in Watertown and want to revitalize boxing in the city that was home to some of the greatest athletes in the sport's history. It's also symbolic of a shift back to the roots of the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball, to when it wasn't just used for Red Sox games but for other sports and political events. 'Most people's experience there is solely related to baseball,' said Richard Johnson, Fenway expert and curator at The Sports Museum in Boston. 'But the fact is that this year, you can see an event that'll be very similar to what your grandparents saw.' Promoters Mark and Matt Nolan want 'Fight Night at Fenway,' scheduled for Saturday, to be both a time capsule and time machine, taking spectators back to boxing's glory days and what the sport can be for the city in the future. The Nolans got their license to organize fights last year with the goal of bringing boxing back to Boston. After Fenway, 'That's mission accomplished,' Matt Nolan said. 'It's not just like our dream, it's everybody's dream — every boxer on planet Earth,' he said. 'Just the idea that some kid can fight his way to Fenway Park. It's like hitting the lottery. You can't you can't beat it. There's nothing comparable.' A rich history Boston has played a long and impressive role in American boxing history and the development of the sport itself, said Johnson, author of 'Field of Our Fathers, An Illustrated History of Fenway Park.' The city was home to 'Boston's Strong Boy,' John L. Sullivan, born in 1858 to Irish immigrant parents and widely considered America's first sports superstar. The first heavyweight champion of the world, he was as famous as Muhammad Ali was in his time. Sam Langford, a Black Canadian-born boxer, moved to Boston as a teenager but was blocked from competing in the world championships by racist policies and is considered one of the greatest non-champions in boxing. Other boxing stars with Boston connections include Marvin Hagler and Rocky Marciano of nearby Brockton. 'The Boston Bomber' Tony DeMarco, whose statue raises his fists at passersby in Boston's North End, was the last fighter to win in the ring at Fenway in 1956. For a time after it was built, Fenway Park was the only outdoor venue with a significant seating capacity in Boston, making it a destination for all kinds of events, including boxing starting in 1920. After new owners took over in 2002, the park became a venue for concerts and sporting events like hockey, snowboarding, Irish football and curling. 'Back in the day, it was sort of the Swiss Army knife of sports facilities in Boston. And it's returned to that — a little bit of everything. So, returning boxing to the park is just a nod to the past,' Johnson said. Other venues can feel 'more corporate and sterile,' but Fenway is living history, said Johnson, who calls it the 'largest open-air museum in New England.' A different pitch Mark Nolan said it's not for lack of trying that no one has hosted a boxing fight at Fenway in almost 70 years. But many promoters couldn't make a pitch that landed with ballpark management. The Nolans, who teach full time and own a boxing gym in Waltham where people can train regardless of their ability to pay, were different. After success hosting events at other venues, Mark Nolan said Fenway Sports Group connected to their 'everyman' appeal and decided to give them a shot. The brothers fell in love with boxing while accompanying their father, a boat captain, to the gym as kids. When they expanded from coaching amateur boxers to professionals five years ago, they were dismayed by what they found: shows full of uneven fights set up to make the promoters as much money as possible, with established amateurs fighting people who 'have no right putting gloves on in any capacity whatsoever' in venues like high school gymnasiums. Fighters weren't being paid fairly and contracts weren't transparent. They came up with a simple business plan: pick good venues, pay fighters well and only host matches in Boston proper. They said a lot of promoters sell fighters, but they're focused on selling fights fans want to see. 'They're making sure that every fight is well-matched,' said Thomas 'The Kid' O'Toole, a fighter from rural Galway, Ireland, who has lived in Boston for the past two years, 'Nobody wants to see someone go in and just knock their opponent out right away and beat them up for four, six, eight rounds. They want to see a competitive fight.' O'Toole went professional in 2021 and is undefeated with 13 fights. He said his fight against St. Louis-born Vaughn 'Da Animal' Alexander at Fenway will be 'the biggest test of his career.' Massachusetts-born Lexi 'Lil Savage' Bolduc will compete in her fourth professional fight. She faces Sarah Couillard in a rematch after coming out on the losing end of a majority draw at the Royale. 'Fighting at Fenway, I think adds a little bit of pressure because I'm local, I grew up in Mass and idolized a lot of players as I was growing up. ... But at the same time, I'm trying to use it just as a huge opportunity and really soak in the moment,' she said. 'Pressure makes diamonds. 'To be able to kind of stand on that same ground of some of the most accomplished athletes, it's really remarkable,' she said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Jesse Watters Trots Out Dehumanizing Analogy for Kilmar Abrego Garcia's Return
Fox News host Jesse Watters criticized the Trump administration for bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States, saying the wrongly deported man's return was like taking a rental car to the car wash. 'I don't think they should have brought him back,' Watters said on The Five, shortly after news broke that Abrego Garcia is facing two counts of human smuggling in Tennessee. 'This is a national security situation. The guy is a designated terrorist. He belongs somewhere else. What are we going to do? We're going to spend two years and $50 million trying this guy and imprisoning this guy, feeding him, giving him healthcare, and then flying him home?' Watters said incredulously. 'This is like renting a car and taking it to a car wash before you return it,' he added. 'What's the point? It's not your car, and it's going back anyway.' Attorney General Pam Bondi said Abrego Garcia would first serve time in a U.S. prison if convicted, then be removed from the country once again. Garcia had been held in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center even after the Trump administration admitted his deportation was an 'administrative error.' When the Supreme Court ordered that it 'facilitate' his return, the White House insisted that it was powerless to do so. Friday's events proved the administration was lying, The Five co-host Jessica Tarlov said Friday. '[White House Press Secretary] Karoline Leavitt—as well as other members of the administration, from the president himself to Kristi Noem—lied to the American people when they said they couldn't bring him back,' Tarlov said. 'Well, I guess you could get him back.' Andrew Rossman, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, made the same point. 'Today's action proves what we've known all along—that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,' he told The New York Times. 'It's now up to our judicial system to see that Mr. Abrego Garcia receives the due process that the Constitution guarantees to all persons.' Abrego Garcia was sent to Tennessee, where the indictment was filed in May and unsealed Friday. The Times reports that an imprisoned man's information about Abrego Garcia moved the case forward. Prosecutors couldn't agree how to proceed, however, and one ended up resigning.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Thai hostage recovered from southern Gaza in military operation
The body of a Thai hostage, Nattapong Pinta, who was abducted alive during the October 7 attacks was recovered from southern Gaza in a military operation on Friday, according to a statement from the Israeli military and the Shin Bet security service. The announcement comes just days after Israel recovered the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages from Gaza. Pinta, 35, was taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel where he had been working in agriculture, according to an Israeli military official, who said it is estimated that he was killed during the first months of captivity. Pinta was a husband and father working in Israel to support his family in Thailand, the official said. 'We will not rest until all the hostages, living and deceased, are returned home,' Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. Pinta was abducted by the Mujahideen, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, a militant group that took part in the Hamas-led October 7 terror attack on Israel. The IDF said it is the same organization that kidnapped the Bibas family and killed Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas, the mother and two young sons who became the most prominent among Hamas' captives. CNN has approached the Thai authorities for comment. Earlier this week, Israel announced that the bodies of Judy Winston-Haggai, 70, and Gadi Haggai, 72, were recovered from southern Gaza. The two were also taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz. The couple had four children and seven grandchildren. The retrieval of Pinta's body comes with an intense Israeli operation underway in Gaza, with the Civil Defense reporting at least 38 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Friday. The IDF said four soldiers were killed and five wounded early Friday morning when an explosive was detonated in a building in Khan Younis in which they were operating, causing part of the structure to collapse. A total of 55 hostages remain in Gaza, including one taken in 2014. Twenty are believed to still be alive. Of the 251 people taken hostage by Hamas militants on October 7, many were migrant workers from poor rural parts of Asia, who had gone to work in Israel's agricultural, construction and health care sectors to send money back home.
