A second-grader who went missing Saturday while camping with his family in a remote Michigan park had taken refuge under a log and was found safe after a desperate search, authorities said Monday.
Nante Niemi, 8, had «braved the elements» and was in good health after a volunteer search team found him at 1:30 p.m. local time, Michigan State Police said in a statement.
Nante was two miles from his family’s campground in Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the department said.
After the boy went missing around 1 p.m. while collecting firewood, more than 150 search and rescue personnel were dispatched by state and local law enforcement agencies to help find him, the department said.
The group had concentrated in an area of about 40 square miles within the 60,000-acre park on the shoreline of Lake Superior, according to the statement.
The department said rescue personnel were searching by land, air and water, describing the park as remote and mountainous, with standing water and deep snow in some areas that made seasonal roads impassable.
He children’s school district in Wisconsin he said he had been ready with two buses of volunteers.
Images of the boy shared by the district on Monday showed Nante posing with the search team after finding him.
Colin Gauther, team member, he told NBC affiliate WLUC of Marquette, Michigan.that the group saw footprints and heard a sound initially believed to be a bird.
«I listened to it again and this time it was completely clear,» Gauther told the station. «I heard him yell and it sounded like someone was screaming at the top of their lungs.»
Another volunteer, Eli Talsma, told the station that the boy’s sweatshirt was dirty but he seemed fine otherwise.
«You couldn’t even tell it was in the woods,» Talsma said.