A runaway 8-year-old was found safe and sound Thursday morning after the little girl braved the bitter cold of Harrison Ferry Mountain with her pink backpack, traveling through the snow over a mile from her house.
“She is a very lucky little girl,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Billy Joe Crouch who was part of the search party that combed Harrison Ferry Mountain Thursday morning in search of the missing child.
According to sheriff’s department reports, the girl’s mother last saw her around 7 a.m. She called authorities around 9 a.m. to report the child missing. A search was immediately launched given the fact temperatures were in the single digits and that hypothermia can be fatal within only a few minutes of exposure.
First responders, deputies, firemen and volunteers fanned out atop Harrison Ferry in the Highway 8 area looking for the little girl.
“We were going door to door, asking if anyone had seen her,” Crouch said of the search party that was working in eight-degree temperatures. “We were tracking her footprints in the snow.”
Before searchers could catch up to the child, she was found by a resident who spotted her laying in his front yard. Authorities immediately rushed to the location.
“We were covering her in coats and trying to wrap her up real good,” Crouch said, noting the girl was dressed warmly and was wearing boots, coveralls, hat and gloves and was carrying a pink backpack. “Her core temperature was still at 98 so she was fine.”
The girl was checked out by ambulance personnel and returned to her mother. After the girl was safely returned, officers realized the girl had wandered more than a mile from her home, traveling a surprisingly long way in the ankle deep snow. Crouch said the girl was fortunate to wander up on the residence since it was fairly deep in the woods where houses and cabins are far and few between.