Missing Australian Boy With Autism Found Alive After 4-Day Search
Luke Shambrook was spotted in dense forest by a police helicopter.
— -- An Australian boy with autism was found alive in a dense forest four days after going missing, and later reunited with his family, police said.
Luke Shambrook, 11, was spotted by a police helicopter in the Fraser National Park in Victoria, miles away from the family’s campground where he disappeared Friday.
Search crews spent days scouring the nearby scrubland, with fears mounting about the boy’s condition. Shambrook was dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia, police said.
Video released by Victoria Police shows rescuers reaching the boy and coming to his aid.
“It was quite amazing,” Acting Sgt. Brad Pascoe of Police Air Wing said of the rescue in a video interview shared by police. “I just, out of the corner of my eye, just caught a little flash of something. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make me get the guys to turn the aircraft around and go back and have further look.”
The search crews were able to spot Shambrook, with the boy appearing to look up at the police helicopter before a member of the search and rescue team could reach the 11-year-old.
“We were just absolutely over the moon,” Pascoe said. “All of us in the crew are parents ourselves, and I can only imagine what the parents of Luke had been going through. Just a great reward for everybody’s efforts.”