If Mary Rayburn’s phone would have stopped ringing, she might have heard the OPP helicopter overhead, as officers searched for her dear husband Alan.

The 81-year-old went out for his usual walk around noon Friday, just as Mary laid down for a nap. When she awoke, Al still wasn’t back — and the door was left slightly ajar.

The police were called around 3 p.m., and given Rayburn’s age — and that he’d left on foot — they immediately started a search that ran around the clock and grew to nearly 100 people strong by Sunday afternoon.

The story had a happy endings as he was located safe around 1:30 p.m. near Moodie Dr. and Corkstown Rd. and handed over to paramedics. He was dehyrdrated, but well.

It was not only Ottawa police who left no stone unturned, but their colleagues with the OPP’s various specialized units, tactical and search-and-rescue paramedics and local search groups and volunteers.

They were in the skies, along shorelines, in the water, on bicycles, on foot with GPS units and cutting swaths through dense suburban bush, greenspace, walking trails and tidy backyards and shrubs.

This is an area well-known to Rayburn, though his faculties have been failing with age. He and Mary were among Crystal Beach’s first residents, as the city began to sprawl west in the 1960s and 70s.

The ordeal has left her frustrated, worried and unwilling to share thoughts about her husband or the search at this time.

“Very much, yes,” she says of her gratitude for the search effort, before politely but firmly asking for privacy.

Rayburn is a prolific author, having written several books over 35 years on the place names of towns and townships across the country — how they got their names and what they mean. He is an expert researcher with a unique skill for finding entertaining anecdotes and plucking them from historical documents — like why there is a place called Quebec in England and a Toronto in Australia, and what Tukyoyaktuk means.

Insp. John Medeiros knows two nights in the chilly, buggy outdoors was no place for an 81-year-old with dementia. There had been no sightings, no clues, no articles of clothing for more than 48 hours.

Police first searched areas where the man could potentially have walked to. Once those areas were searched, they expanded the area of interest.

“We try to get as much information as possible out to the public,”Medeiros said. “When it comes to family members, we need someone at the residence in case that individual returns.”

Twitter: @doughempstead