The British owner of a Tenerife car rental company said the community has been “rallying around” in the search for missing teenager Jay Slater, and he has made cars available on the island for people helping with the search.
The 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, disappeared after an attempt to walk back to his accommodation after missing a bus, and was last heard from when he called a friend on Monday.
Owner of Sanasty Car Hire Tenerife, Andrew Knight, 29, told the PA news agency he has made 10 cars available free of charge to help people get to the search location, and has helped the search himself.
He said: “I was trying to work out ways I could assist and I had some cars sitting around, and I decided to go on the (Jay Slater Facebook) group and offer those cars so people who wanted to go and join the search could take the cars free of charge, just to get some people up there.
“It’s a very, very remote landscape. It’s difficult to get to, it’s about a 45-minute drive from the main area of Los Cristianos, Las Americas.”
Several cars a day have been rented out for this purpose so far, including by the uncle of Mr Slater, Mr Knight claimed, adding that some people had returned with “cuts on their legs from all the cactuses”.
Mr Knight moved to Tenerife from Liverpool 10 years ago and although he does not know the teenager, he felt compelled to help as it is in his “nature” and “just the way Tenerife is as a community”.
“It’s just very much the way the Tenerife community is when something happens like this. Everyone sort of groups together and does whatever they can,” he said.
“Especially the expat community, it does rally around a lot.
“We’ve had incidents like this before and everyone is sharing everything, everyone’s doing their part in between working, serving the tourists that are here, because it is quite busy here at the moment in general.”
He helped with the search himself for about three hours on Thursday and posted a video of his efforts for his 81,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, TheKnightStrider.
“You’re up there, it’s very thin air, you’ve got cloud around. It actually started to rain at one point, it was quite drizzly. Then 10 minutes later the sun was out and it went a little bit warmer, the weather is constantly changing,” he said.
“It does go very cold at night, especially with the thin air and the wind chill. It would be pretty cold if you were up there without jumpers and jackets and things.”
Mr Knight said the community has banded together and he hopes that the teenager will be found.
“I think the response has been very positive, and it will continue as well. It won’t just die away or stop, they will continue to share and keep going until there is some information or answers, or until he is found,” he said.
“I’m hoping he’s going to be found alive and well. I’m hoping he is hiding out somewhere or something like that, that is the most positive outcome and just hoping that they find him alive and well. That’s the main hope.”
A fundraiser set up by Lucy Law, the last person in contact with Mr Slater, to “get Jay Slater home” has received more than £24,300 in donations.
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesman said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has been reported missing in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities.”