Father of 2 Forced To Abandon Children in Woods Overnight While He Searches for Help
When a family found itself in terrible danger, a father was forced to make a tough decision for the sake of his children.
While looking for a place to fish on Mount Burke in British Columbia, a 6-year-old girl, a 7-year-old boy and their father became lost as they wandered off a trail, CBC News reported.
As the day transitioned to evening, the unmarked terrain became harder to see. When the American family stumbled down a steep hillside, the situation seemed grim.
Having been injured from the fall, the father realized that the hill was too steep to climb with his young children in tow. The climb would be too dangerous for the kids, who had also sustained minor injuries.
The father bundled his son and daughter in warm clothes and told them to stay put on the plateau. He then mustered the strength to clamber up the hill in search of help.
After walking for some time, the father found a fellow hiker and used the man’s cell phone to call authorities. At around 7 p.m., multiple search and rescue teams set out to find the children. The search lasted well into the night.
At around 8:30 a.m., rescuers finally spotted the children, The Daily Mail reported.
Brad Rennie, a member of the Ridge Meadows Search and Rescue Team, said that the children were hard to see on the hillside.
Longline rescue of 2 children lost after Burke Mnt fall over cliff. Headed to safety at Minnekhada Park after long night without dad pic.twitter.com/PysDS2WsVK
— Yvette Brend (@ybrend) May 20, 2019
“They were invisible, pretty much like a rock. They were hiding under a grey sweatshirt. After several calls, they actually responded and came out of the sweatshirt and gave us the A-OK,” Rennie told CBC News.
Although the children had waited all night for a sign of rescue, they were in good spirits when they saw the team arrive. Their father waited nearby as the children were airlifted to solid ground, wrapped in emergency blankets.
“The kids did a great job. And the dad did a great job of telling them, you know, ‘I want you to stay here,'” Ian MacDonald, Coquitlam Search and Rescue manager, said.
Many of the rescue team members have children of their own. For them, the successful rescue felt even more emotional and miraculous.
“It was really elation. This is very rugged terrain where they were lost so we were just very, very thankful that they were found alive and uninjured,” MacDonald said.
The children were taken to a nearby hospital. Although they had endured a cold night and a few minor injuries, they were otherwise in good health.
“This was really a miraculous rescue and a really positive outcome,” MacDonald said.
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