A missing 4-year-old Montana boy was miraculously found safe after surviving two days on his own in cold temperatures in a Sanders County wilderness over the weekend.
Searchers found Ryker Webb was on Sunday safe but “hungry, thirsty and cold” after a two-day search involving ground responders, ATV teams, canine teams, drones, helicopters and a boat unit from multiple agencies, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office announced.
Just before 5 p.m. Friday, a concerned neighbor reported the child missing. Deputies soon learned that the boy had already been missing for more than two hours at that point and had last been seen playing with the family dog in his yard south of Troy, Montana on the east side of Bull Lake.
The boy was wandering alone in the wooded area as temperatures dropped into the 40s overnight Saturday and thunderstorms and heavy rainfall impacted the search effort.
According to the sheriff’s office, searchers had to turn back due to “very poor weather conditions which consisted of rain, low visibility, and low ceiling.”
Dense vegetation in the area also made the search for the little boy “extremely difficult,” the office added.
Ryker was eventually found in Sanders County, about 2.4 miles from where he went missing, as a 53-person team was searching the area.
He “was in good spirits and apparently healthy, although hungry, thirsty, and cold,” the sheriff’s office said. He was brought to Cabinet Peaks Medical Center for evaluation.
