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.

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.