AN appeal to find a missing 90-year-old man with Alzheimer’s reached 19,832 people in just one hour.

Jonathan Hastilow-Sands, pictured, went missing from the Royal Bolton Hospital, where he was an inpatient, at 10am on Saturday.

He was found 11 hours later at a hospital in Bristol. Mystery still surrounds how Mr Hastilow-Sands, who lives in Little Hulton, managed to travel 175 miles.

Staff at the hospital contacted Greater Manchester Police who, in addition to searching the hospital and surrounding area, put an appeal on their Facebook pages. The post put on the social networking website by the Bolton West team was shared 965 times. After Mr Hastilow-Sands was found, Bolton West told followers on Twitter that the messages on Facebook had reached almost 20,000 people.

They said: “Fantastic response to sharing that last post about the missing old gent. In the space of an hour it managed to reach 19,832 people thanks to you lot sharing — take some credit and once again thank you. A great result, some more good news.”