By Sara Smart, CNN
A missing 8-year-old boy who had survived for two days in a Michigan state park eating snow was found sheltering under a log Monday, state police announced.
Nante Niemi went missing Saturday afternoon while collecting firewood for her family’s campsite in northwest Michigan’s Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, sparking an extensive search and rescue effort to find the Wisconsin boy, the Wisconsin police said. Michigan State Police in a pitch.
more than 150 State and local police personnel scoured the remote, mountainous terrain on foot, by air and by water, the statement said, noting that several roads were still impassable due to deep snow.
The boy had been walking on a trail Sunday, but the trail eventually ran out, the state police’s Upper Peninsula Division said. tweeted.
“He thought the best thing to do was pull over and wait,” police said.
In order to survive, Niemi had “covered herself with branches and leaves to keep warm and also covered the trunk she was under. He had no food, but he ate clean snow to hydrate,” police said in the tweet.
Niemi was finally found Monday afternoon by search party volunteers about two miles from the camp, police said. She is in good health and has been reunited with her family.
Eli Talsma, a friend of Niemi’s who was among the rescue party that found the boy, recalled hearing members of the search party shout that they had found him. WLUC, CNN affiliate informed.
“As soon as I heard that, I grabbed my bag that was on the ground and started running towards it,” Talsma told WLUC. “I just ran up to him and gave him the biggest hug. I was so relieved once I saw it.”
Niemi is a second grader from Hurley, Wisconsin, the Hurley school district told CNN.
“While our emotions are very raw right now, we want to acknowledge the outpouring of love and support we have received over the past few days,” the school district said in a statement. facebook post after the boy was found.
The CNN Wire
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CNN’s Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.
