As most of you know I live in a mountain community called Wintergreen located in Central Virginia just west of Charlottesville, Virginia.

This past Saturday evening a young boy (8 years old) was visiting the resort with his parents.  While taking a hike with his parents.  Near the end of the walk as they were getting close to their rental cottage he stated that he was going to run ahead a little ways.  When his parents arrived just a short while later he was nowhere to be found.

Of course after walking up and down the trail calling his name for a while his parents called the resort police, and they called the rescue squad.  By this time it was getting dark and turning cold again.  (We had an inch of snow on Friday night). 

The police and rescue squad sent their people out on the trail, but by 6:30 or so there was still no results.  By this time word was getting out in the area and other rescue squads as well as the local state police and sheriffs departments had arrived.  By 7:00am neighbors were turning out to help in the search, a helicopter was also searching the area with a spotlight, but due to foliage still on the trees they could not see much.

By 8:00 we probably had close to 75 or 100 people helping.  The sheriff radioed the leaders of the groups to return to the command center and as new volunteers arrive a new grid search was started.  By 9:00 we had over 200 volunteers searching the woods as well as a blood hound that was brought in from out of the area.

To make a long story short Sam was found around 11:00 cold and frightened, but unharmed.  When we received the radio call that he had been found you could hear cheers and shouts all up and down the mountain as some of the search parties by this time were as much as a half mile from where he was last seen.  This area is very rough and rocky with waterfalls, cliffs and ledges where he could have fallen, and we were all fearing the worst.

It was just amazing to see how the community turned out in this remote area.  It took many of us over an hour to hike back to the command center to turn in our lights and sign back in.  It was dark, wet, cold and dangerous hiking through the woods, but not one complaint was heard.  Everyone went home tired and cold, but extremely happy.  What a great place to live.

Don't you just love stories with happy endings?