A Florida man who had been missing since Valentine’s Day was found over a week later trapped in mud up to his shoulders, authorities said.

Andrew Giddens, 36, had reportedly gone several days without food or water by then, and officials ultimately rescued him in dramatic fashion to end his nightmarish ordeal.

Deputy Derrick Holmes of the sheriff’s office in Florida’s Putnam county spotted Giddens’ abandoned car on 23 February relatively close to a sand plant belonging to Vulcan Materials Company, the agency wrote in a Facebook post.

The sheriff’s office said Holmes recognized the car and Giddens’ name, which was on the vehicle’s registration from having encountered him during a 2023 trespassing reported at another Vulcan Materials site.

Holmes reached out to Vulcan Materials officials, asking them to search their property and see if there was any sign of Giddens, a resident of nearby Jacksonville. He also asked the sheriff’s office in Jacksonville to check on Giddens’ home.

Holmes at that point heard from friends and family of Giddens, who told him they had neither seen nor spoken with him since he last had contact with his father on 14 February. They told Holmes that Giddens was depressed over a recent breakup, and the Putnam sheriff’s office opened a missing persons investigation into his disappearance, the agency office said.

Vulcan employees, meanwhile, had not stopped looking for signs of Giddens when one spotted him during the early evening of 25 February in shoulder-deep mud by what is known as a borrow pit, the Putnam sheriff’s office said. Giddens was alert and could talk, but the worker who had found him could not get to him because he was surrounded by “unstable” ground, the sheriff’s office said.

After being summoned to the scene, specialized crews with local fire departments collaborated to free Giddens, using supplies such as ladders, backboards, pallets, poles and ropes. The elaborate operation took about three hours, with rescuers needing to be careful to not become stuck in the mud themselves, said the sheriff’s office, which published video footage and photos of portions of the effort.

Giddens had endured freezing temperatures in the preceding days, besides lacking either food or water, the agency said. An air ambulance later flew Giddens to a hospital in critical condition.

The fire department in the Putnam community of Palatka, which participated in Giddens’ rescue, said in its own statement that he was expected to recover physically. But the Putnam sheriff’s office also made it a point to say it was not considering pursuing any charges against Giddens for evidently having accessed the Vulcan plant without permission “due to his mental health”.

A woman identifying herself as an aunt of Giddens, Jeannie Smith Carson, suggested in a social media post that she understood her nephew had been stuck in the mud for about four days.

“Thank God he was found when he was,” Carson added. “One more day, and we would not have been as fortunate.”

The Florida news outlet WCJB reported a statement from Vulcan, which praised its team for having “handled a trespassing situation with care and compassion shepherding first responders to a man who was in distress”.

“We are grateful for his safe rescue and thankful for the first responders who aided him,” the Vulcan statement was also reported to have said.