A missing 6-year-old was found safe after going missing for about two days in rural eastern Kentucky earlier this week.
For two days, hundreds of searchers scoured rugged terrain looking for Roman Heilman, who has autism and had last been seen Sunday afternoon near his home in the small town of Louisa wearing a plaid green jacket and Crocs.
It was not immediately clear how the boy initially went missing or who reported it. Travis Hughes, the Lawrence County emergency management director, told CBS News that Heilman was known to play outside and explore the woods.
More than 300 volunteers on foot and horseback — as well as specialized units from Kentucky State Police and the Kentucky National Guard and search-and-rescue crews from West Virginia and Ohio — combed the heavily wooded area around the clock while helicopters and drones searched from above.
They eventually found a muddy footprint that led them to Heilman’s clothes, including a jacket, pants and a diaper, Hughes told CBS News.
“We knew this child was without clothes and we knew there was weather moving in, raining,” Hughes said. “So we wanted to put our horseback teams in there with the ground searchers.”
Volunteers were told to sing one of Heilman’s favorite songs, “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” hoping to draw him out of the woods.
Then on Tuesday morning, about a mile and a half from home, Heilman emerged from the brush with his dog, naked and covered in scratches, said Hughes, who also indicated that the dog was believed to have been with Heilman when he went missing.
“He comes out right behind his dog and that’s when he pointed and said, ‘E-I-E-I O,’ and pointed to the horses,” Hughes said. “And that’s when our team got up to him and wrapped him up in a blanket, gave him something to eat.”
Heilman was recovering from dehydration in an area hospital as of Wednesday, officials said.
In a social media post, Hughes praised the comprehensive rescue effort, saying that at one point so many people stepped forward to help that “we had to ask additional volunteers to hold off while we organized the resources we already had.”
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