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A toddler and his brother were out playing one day when Kevin Alford left his 4-year-old brother (Anthony) outside playing in the front yard of their mobile home. He had went inside to his parents for some help with a fire ant bite, and when they went back outside about fifteen minutes later Anthony had disappeared.
As any parents in this predicament, they searched the area for 30 minutes before calling for help. Since they could not determine that the boy was kidnapped, they could not set off an amber alert. As they searched, they continued to come up empty handed– draining ponds, searching through grass, and even checking the neighbors dogs, fearing the worst.
He probably slept and hid under thick bushes in some woods, frightened from a thunderstorm and the noise of rescue helicopters and searchers on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles.
When a helicopter pilot spotted Kevin on Sunday night, the boy was nearly a mile from his home. Kevin was lying on his stomach at the edge of a pond as if he had been drinking, and the co-pilot jumped out, scooped him up and flew him to a hospital.
“This little fellow was gone 69 hours and 16 minutes. There’s no way he should have been alive,” Johnson County Sheriff Bob Alford said. “I don’t know if you believe in God, but this is truly a miracle that this boy is alive.”
Although he’s meeting with a psychologist to find out what happened, the boy appears in fine condition. They are still unsure of how he survived in the woods. He had some scratches on him, and was dehydrated, but it’s certainly something that he first was able to get turned around so he could not get home and then that he was not found very early on.
Fortunately for this boy, providence was on his side here, and the family has learned a lesson about making sure to keep a look out on a child’s whereabouts!
What a story!
When your boys get a little older, you need to read Incident on Hawk’s Hill to them (can’t remember the author)…here’s a little synopsis for you (it’s based on a true story)…
A three year old boy wanders off into the Canadian wilderness. He’s always been more in tune with animals than humans, and for three months, through an amazing turn of events he lives in a badger burrow…cared for by the badger. She’d just lost her babies when he happened along needing her. Since he was hidden in her burrow most of the time, the search parties never found him. It has a happy ending, as far as the boy’s life goes…he’s restored to his family, but there is a sad part about the badger. There’s an icky description of a mouse killing early in the book…but I think if my girls could handle it, boys could too! ;O)
Happy reading!