Missing
five year old found safe and sound Lost for almost 24 hours after following his
cat into the woods, Brandon Dunfield tells rescuers,
"Nothin’ happened, I went for a walk"
(CANADAEAST NEWS
SERVICE)
Sgt. Dan Goodwin, left,
and Capt. Rob Johnson, of the Armed Forces, talk
with RCMP Const. Dan Delorey during yesterday's
search.
CANADEAST NEWS
SERVICE
FREDERICTON - Tears
flowed freely yesterday morning as dozens of rescue
volunteers came forward to meet Brandon Dunfield, the
five-year-old boy whom they had spent the night combing
through thick brush and woods to find.
"This is
the most wonderful feeling in the world," said Brandon’s
mom, Mindy Harnish, yesterday afternoon, her arms
encircling the wide-eyed preschooler
protectively.
"I feel like my life is
back."
Brandon, who is three feet tall with
short, dark hair and dark eyes, was found within a
kilometre of his Lord Road home in Beaver Dam, about 18
kilometres south of Fredericton, at 11 a.m. yesterday.
He had gone missing almost 24 hours earlier when he left
his bicycle and followed his cat into the thick
woods.
The boy suffered nothing more than
confusion, shock and a few bug bites, his mother
said.
After being declared in good health by
emergency medical technicians on the scene, Brandon told
the large crowd of jubilant onlookers that he had spent
the night with his cat under the same tree rescue
workers found him curled beneath.
Apparently the
boy’s grandfather had told him to stay put under a tree
if he ever found himself lost in the woods. Brandon took
that advice literally.
With a small stuffed
animal as a pillow, he bedded down for the night under
an overhang of bush and huddled with the family cat all
night.
"Nothin’ happened," he told a crowd of
reporters after being reunited with his frantic mother
and grandmother. "(I) went for a walk."
Brandon
told his mother he did have to fend off a bear by
"punching him in the nose" an embellishment that amused
chuckling rescuers.
More than 100 people had
helped in the extesive search for Brandon, including
members of the RCMP, York Sunbury Search and Rescue, Red
Cross, the New Maryland Volunteer Fire Department and
expert military spotters who flew in loops over the area
in a CFB Gagetown helicopter.
Friends, relatives
and neighbours were also on the scene all night,
carefully inspecting the woods and local wells, hoping
against hope the boy would be found safe and
sound.
Neighbour Stephen Lawrence was one of the
four men who found Brandon.
"We heard a faint
noise and we started running towards him and yelling,"
Lawrench said. "(He yelled back ‘It’s me!'" Lawrence
said.
"I was shaking. I couldn’t believe we found
him. I have a seven-year-old, so this hit very close to
home."
Rescuers said Brandon asked for their
names before he would come out from his sleeping place.
He told them he was upset because he’d spent the night
with his cat and it had run away again.
"I’m just
thanking God, there’s been a lot of prayers. I’m just so
glad he wasn’t kidnapped or something," said his
grandmother Linda Harnish, who lives with her daughter
and grandson.
Neighbour Samantha Howe said she
has lived on the road all her life.
Howe said
she’s not surprised so many people joined the search for
Brandon. She and her father had walked some of the
trails Wednesday afternoon and evening as part of the
search. She said they also checked an abandoned farm for
signs of the boy.
"I have a nephew named Brandon,
so everybody has been calling us thinking it’s him. We
went out to the farm and Dad said he was going to check
everywhere my nephew would fit to see if he was there,"
she said.
"We’re a huge family out here when it
comes to things like this."
