Tony Joab, 65, went missing on Wednesday after walking away from his home between 7 a.m. and noon, Fayetteville police said in an announcement.

In the announcement, police said Joab might appear “disoriented” because of his condition. In addition, officials said the man did not have a phone on him and was not in a vehicle.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around six million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease—the most common form of dementia. One of the main signs of the disease is memory loss that disrupts daily life, such as getting lost in a familiar place.

“There had been extensive efforts made to locate the gentleman, but we just hadn’t found him yet,” Lt. Scott Carlton of the Fayetteville Police Department told KNWA/KFTA. “Darkness was moving in on us. We had rainfall coming in, and we had done everything we could to put the information out to the public to try to find him.”

Lt. Carlton and his colleagues decided to ask around some houses in an area close to Joab’s home to see if anyone had seen the missing man.

Eventually, police knocked on the door of the five-year-old boy’s home and he told them that he had seen a man walking through the woods near his school during recess that day.

“I was kind of like a little bit excited and scared at the same time,” the boy, Ezekiel McCulley, said, in reference to his feelings about speaking to police.

The information that the boy provided to police enabled them to finally locate the missing man after searching in the woods.

“The cops ended up coming back and knocking on our door,” the boy’s mother, Brittany McCulley, said. “They told us they found him [Joab] and that it was due to his [Ezekiel’s] tip. They asked if they could take a picture with him and he has just been so excited since.”

Lt. Carlton said that the boy was the “hero of the day” after helping to find the man. Following the incident, police and firefighters made a visit to McCulley’s preschool to thank the boy for what he had done, bringing cookies, badges and other gifts for the students.

“Everyone wanted to come and meet him, so the police officers and firemen were so excited this morning to come down here and see him,” Lt. Carlton said.

The five-year-old said he would like to become a police officer one day and even came up with a new word to describe how saving the missing man made him feel, describing it as a “criracle”—a combination of “crazy” and “miracle.”

“I saved someone just off my eyes,” the boy said.

In a statement posted to Facebook on Thursday, Fayetteville Arkansas Police Department said the boy’s parents had credited the officers who came to their door for not dismissing their son’s story.

“They said when an officer knelt down to his level and showed interest in what he was saying, it made all the difference in getting the tip,” the statement said.

Sergeant Tony Murphy, from the Fayetteville Police Department, told Newsweek the incident was a “wonderful example” of what a community can accomplish when working together.

“Without the hard work and tenacity of the first responders searching the area and the situational awareness of little Ezekiel the situation most likely would not have had a happy ending,” Murphy said.

“We are proud to have a community that works with us in policing and this incident was the perfect example of what the Fayetteville Police Department strives for every day.”

Update: 02/23/22, 06:20 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include comments from Sergeant Tony Murphy and an image of Ezekiel McCulley.