An outpouring of community support helped lead to the safe return of a county woman roughly 36 hours after she had gone missing.

When Brittany Omstead, 24, of Clearfield Township, walked past caution tape delineating a search area near her home at around 9:30 p.m. Saturday after having last been seen before noon Friday, it was close to a throng of volunteers who had all signed up to find her. Many of the volunteers did not know Omstead.

Omstead was tired and dehydrated, but in good condition.

It was the best anyone could have asked for.

Found and OK

“She just walked out of the cornfield,” said Maria Omstead-Wagner, Omstead's mother.

Omstead's first reaction when she saw the search party was confusion.

“She kind of just walked out and nobody noticed her,” Omstead-Wagner said, referencing a video of her daughter emerging from the darkness. “You see her lifting the caution tape and she's looking at it like, 'Why is this here?'”

While Omstead-Wagner wasn't at the site when her daughter was found, she quickly returned when she heard the news.

“I got the call and I came — I don't want to say speeding back, but I got there as quick as I could,” she said. “I found out she was alive and I came running to her.”

Omstead-Wagner said her daughter was “dazed and confused,” and despite appearing as if she had spent the last day and a half in the woods, was in relatively good spirits.

Omstead-Wagner said her daughter “doesn't remember. She doesn't know. We just don't know (what happened to her.)”

Omstead's return was just as mysterious as her disappearance.

A Missed Rehearsal

Omstead-Wagner said she first became worried Friday afternoon when she was told her daughter hadn't showed up to help set up for a friend's wedding rehearsal.

At around 10:45 that morning, Omstead left her mom's house, saying she had to get her car from her ex-boyfriend, with whom she still lives, before going to the rehearsal.

Omstead-Wagner got a call that evening from the groom asking if she knew where Omstead was because she hadn't attended the rehearsal. Thinking Omstead was asleep, Omstead-Wagner called her daughter's phone several times before driving out to check on her.

First, she stopped at a friend's house where Omstead was dog-sitting and, when she wasn't there, then stopped at her daughter's house.

There, Omstead-Wagner found her daughter's truck, the aforementioned car and her keys. She walked in and asked the ex-boyfriend if he had seen her — he said he hadn't — before Omstead's phone began ringing. It was Omstead's friend calling; seeing her daughter's phone still in the house shook Omstead-Wagner.

Her other daughter said, “'I'm starting to worry, Mom.'”

“Me, too,” Omstead-Wagner said.

A Show of Support

After speaking with state police, the nervous mother found her next best tool to find Omstead: the surrounding community.

Omstead-Wagner contacted the media and her state representative for some help and to raise awareness. She made a post on Facebook, which was shared by a number of friends and those living around the county.

A Facebook group — “Finding Brittany” — was quickly formed and by Saturday evening had more than 2,000 members.

They had more to offer than their social media, however.

After state police searched the area with dogs, hundreds of people who had heard Omstead had gone missing showed up to a 200-acre site in Worth Township where Omstead was suspected of being.

“Brittany's friend and boss — she used to work in her barn — she pulled in with horses and people,” Omstead-Wagner said. “We had cars everywhere. I think we had about 10 horse trailers with about 30 horses. We had so many people.”

When that search proved fruitless, a number of the volunteers went to near where Omstead lived in Clearfield Township. The cold of the day and the darkening sky proved no match for their ambition.

“When it got dark, we had the fire departments there with their lights on, cars with lights,” Omstead-Wagner said.

And then Omstead appeared, healthy and alive.