An intense, all-out search for a missing 7-year-old girl in Rosemount, Minnesota, ended with relief when a neighbor found her safe inside his home after nightfall.

Police, family and friends spent hours looking on the ground and from the air as the search widened through a townhouse community near 145th Street West and Cobalt Avenue.

"I saw a lady coming from the main road, pretty frantic, yelling a name," said Joe Fabeck, who lives nearby. "She told me her 7-year-old daughter had run up that same way, and she can't find her."

Fabeck said he initially hadn't seen anything. A few hours later, that changed.

"I turned around and she's standing in my kitchen," he said. "No shoes on, just her socks, crying. She said, 'My mom, I think, is looking for me.' And I said, 'Honey, everyone is looking for you.'"

Fabeck, a former firefighter, believes the girl likely slipped into his open garage earlier in the evening and hid under the stairs. He escorted her outside, alerted police and helped reunite her with her family.

"Thank God we had those resources, you know, in social media and stuff like that, to do these kind of things, so that there are some happy endings," Fabeck said.

The moment rattled him, not just because the girl was suddenly there, he said, but because he realized how easily things could have gone differently.

"She could have gone into anyone's garage, and something bad could have happened ...really bad ... and it didn't," he said. "I'm just glad I was home  and that she's back with her family."

Police said the girl was not injured.