Search finds lost 6-year-old near Malpais

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — A young boy was found alive and only slightly hypothermic after searchers spent hours looking for the missing child near the Malpais.

The 6-year-old child wandered away from his sister during an evening walk on Tuesday, a spokesman for the New Mexico State Police said Wednesday. The boy’s sister returned alone to the family home in the High Country Ranch Subdivision near New Mexico Highway 117 around 6:49 p.m. and said her brother was lost.

Sgt. Richard Doty, of the NMSP-Grants, said the family reported the boy missing at 9:21 p.m. and NMSP officers immediately mounted a search. District 6 officers enlisted the help of state police from Grants and Quemado as well as Cibola County Sheriff’s deputies. No aircraft were involved in the night-time search.

Doty said the boy was wearing only blue jeans, tennis shoes and a long-sleeved T-shirt and officials feared that he might die from exposure in the 41-degree weather if he were not located quickly.

By 1 a.m, the boy had been missing in for seven hours under risky conditions and professional searchers had been working for four hours in the cold and dark with no results.

But the child turned out to be one lucky kid and was in good shape when Cibola County Deputy Levi Francis found him sitting in a chair in an abandoned cabin at 1:48 Wednesday morning. The cabin was approximately one mile from his home.

Doty said that the boy remarked only that he was looking for his mother.

Quemodo Ambulance Services arrived and treated the boy for mild hypothermia before releasing him.

NMSP-Grants will be conducting a follow up investigation regarding the incident, Doty said.

The sheriff’s office said it was a good job for the “new rookie” on their force.