Romania: Feverish search! Boy (5) survives three days in forest full of bears

Sebeșu de Jos (Romanian) – This rescue is nothing short of a miracle! A five-year-old boy has disappeared in a vast Romanian forest. It wasn’t until the third day that he was finally found – alive and well! A helicopter spotted him in a clearing.

During the hours of fear, the whole country was excited: more and more people gathered near the village of Sebeșu de Jos in the Transylvania region to search for the boy. In the end, almost 500 mostly volunteers were involved in the search in the dense area at the foot of the Southern Carpathians.

Father took his eyes off him for a moment

On Monday, the child accompanied his father at the edge of the forest as he was building an electric fence. When the man was absorbed in his work for a moment and briefly took his eyes off the boy, he ran into a bush and suddenly had no trace disappeared.

The father initially looked for the five-year-old himself, repeatedly calling out his nickname Alex. But Alex seemed to have been swallowed up by the earth. As dusk fell, Toma Z. alerted the police. A large contingent rushed into the approximately 1,500 hectare area.

Forests are brown bear territories

When it got dark, the helpers still had no trace of the boy. But a much greater danger lurked in the cold and darkness: Romania’s untouched forests are home to Europe’s largest population of brown bears. There are repeated attacks on people who carelessly invade their areas.

For three days the hope of even finding Alex sank. Hundreds of police officers, firefighters, mountain rescuers and volunteers searched tirelessly Forests off – without a sign of life from the boy. For the parents, it was a nightmare that only ended on Wednesday, after two nights of agonizing worry.

Boy was hypothermic and soaked from the rain

At around 1 p.m., the crew of a military helicopter spotted the five-year-old between the trees. He sat on a slope, his hands folded together and his gaze turned upward. He was alive! 40 minutes later, rescuers on the ground reached the boy, about two and a half kilometers as the crow flies from where he disappeared. He was soaked from the rain and hypothermic, but his condition was stable.

“I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart,” the father later said in a video from the search party. “I was so impatient and screaming, what could have happened…” According to police, little Alex is now recovering from his ordeal in a hospital.