{"id":169906,"date":"2025-09-26T05:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T05:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/169906\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T05:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T05:12:11","slug":"favourite-song-among-the-tools-used-in-search-for-missing-alberta-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/169906\/","title":{"rendered":"Favourite song among the tools used in search for missing Alberta boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The search for a young Lethbridge, Alta., boy who went missing while on a camping trip with his family in southwestern Alberta<\/a>, is now into day five and there are about 120 searchers from Alberta and British Columbia involved, according to the latest update from the RCMP and Alberta Search and Rescue on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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Six-year-old Darius Macdougall disappeared<\/a> while going for a walk on Sunday, along with five other young family members, near Island Lake campground, about four km south of Crowsnest Pass \u2014 about 250 km south of Calgary.<\/p>\n

When the group returned to the family\u2019s campsite, the boy was not with them.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe search for 6-year-old Darius Macdougall is more challeomplicated because he has autism, so may not respond to searchers when he sees them or hears them call his name.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tmissingchild.ca\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Adam Kennedy of Alberta Search and Rescue said crews have been focusing on a search radius of about four km from where the family was camping, \u201cwith some of the trail searches extending out to approximately eight km.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t6-year-old Darius Macdougall went missing on Sunday, while out for a walk with other young family members, near Island Lake campground\u00a0 in southwestern Alberta.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy: RCMP\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The search has been made more challenging because the boy is autistic, or neurodivergent, and may not process information in the same way as other people.<\/a><\/p>\n

It also means the boy may not respond or interact well with people calling his name.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo the neurodivergence that was identified is being taken into consideration during the search operations,\u201d said Kennedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the considerations being put in place is one, not using loud noises that\u2019s identified that it may be startling.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne other consideration is not using bright lights during the nighttime searches as an attempt to not startle Darius,\u201d added Kennedy.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA photo of the staging area, near Island Lake campground, in southwestern Alberta, where about 120 search and rescue members are looking for a 6-year-old Lethbridge boy who went missing on Sunday.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy: RCMP\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

What searchers are also doing is using sounds that may be appealing to him, including one of his favourite songs that is being played by both searchers on the ground and by drones as they fly over the area, in an attempt to lure Darius out where he can be seen by searchers.<\/p>\n

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Without the permission of his family, the RCMP would not reveal what that favourite song is.<\/p>\n

Aerials of the search area, provided by the RCMP, show it is covered in dense forests, steep mountainous terrain and numerous waterways, including rivers, lakes and boggy areas, which searchers say require those on the ground to work almost shoulder to shoulder to effectively cover the area.<\/p>\n

Searchers are also using dogs, all terrain vehicles, drones, helicopters and a request has been made for some crews to join the search on horseback.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said some new software technology has also been brought in to analyze aerial videos.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe computer systems they have can run previous or footage as it\u2019s obtained through that software to find small anomalies that the human eye would not likely pick up looking at a screen or even looking through the footage after the fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just identifies very tiny anomalies. Some turn out to be unfounded, but then there\u2019s a potential that some could give us some indication as to where to find Darius,\u201d added Kennedy.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAn aerial view of a staging area being used by searchers. There are now about 120 search and rescue members looking for 6-year-old Darius Macdougall.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy: RCMP\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The overnight temperature in the search area dropped to about 3 C.<\/p>\n

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A wilderness expert who spoke to Global News said chances of a person\u2019s survival are much better if the temperature remains above freezing, but hypothermia<\/a> is concern, especially in the mountains, where the weather can change quickly and dramatically.<\/p>\n

Brent Koinberg, owner of Crowsnest Adventures<\/a>, who offers wilderness trips in the area, said \u201cthe most important thing is to stay out of the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koinberg also estimates the average person could survive \u201cthree or four days\u201d without water.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, he said the boy should have lots of access to water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI give the child a good chance of survivability because it\u2019s an instinct that we\u2019re born with. If we\u2019re thirsty we look for something, right?\u201d said Koinberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a good chance because there\u2019s lots of water around that area.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDespite a search that is into its fifth day, and still no sign of a missing 6-year-old Alberta boy, searchers insist they are still hopeful Darius Macdougall will be found alive.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSource: Zoom\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Five days into the search and with searchers admitting so far there has been no sign of the little boy, they were also asked if there has been any talk of when they might be talking about scaling back the search.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI can tell you 100 per cent that has not been discussed,\u201d said RCMP Cpl. Gina Slaney, who insisted \u201cthere is no current plan to scale back. We are going to do everything we can to find Darius.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of right now, we are still working on the assumption that Darius is alive and the search temple reflects that,\u201d added Kennedy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The search for a young Lethbridge, Alta., boy who went missing while on a camping trip with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2169,85470,295,43,28462,85471,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-169906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-darius-macdougall","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-investigations","13":"tag-missing-alberta-boy","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}