Autistic Hiker Found Alive In W. Va. (After 4 Days in Wilderness)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: KDKA

After days of praying and searching, a missing 18-year-old autistic hiker from Morgantown, West Virginia, has been found alive and has reunited with his family.

Jacob Allen was found shortly after 2 p.m. about a mile away from where they found his hat on Monday. He wandered away from his parents while hiking on the Boar's Nest Trail in the Dolly Sods Wilderness area near Elkins, West Virginia Sunday afternoon.

Allen is essentially nonverbal so searchers attempted to coax him by offering candy, ice cream and other food items.

"It really is a miracle," search spokesman Chris Stadelman told reporters. Stadelman says the teenager was “alert” and has had something to eat and that he was taken to a hospital for an evaluation.


Read more: http://kdka.com/topstories/local_story_291165301.html

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Feel good story of the day in this area.

[DemoTex]

1. Great news! Great work by professionals and volunteers, alike.

I'm glad the ham radio community pitched in, too. But, then again, they usually do.

[angstlessk]

2. This post just kept drawing my eye...I am not necessarily one who

just links onto feel good stories..but I am glad I finally clicked on because it is truly heartwarming. Of course I thought it was a four year old whom everyone would rally around...but this was a grown up man with problems, which makes it even more important! What a great community!

[MountainLaurel]

3. Oh wow!

That is such good news. I was worried: That area is incredibly wild, and I know they've had snow already this year.

[Scurrilous]

4. Good news!

:thumbsup:

[hollowdweller]

5. I 've backpacked that area many times.

It is awesome, but in places it is thick as hell. One time the wife and I got off the trail and floundered around in the rhododendron for about 45 minutes before we found the trail, about 20 25 feet to the right!

The main difficulties is the thickness of most of it, and then the area was logged in the early 20th century and the logs were hauled out using these little trains that rain on these narrow rails. A lot of the trails run on or across the railroad grades, and it's easy to mistake the grades for the trails. But the difference is you go on the grade and then reach a point where you are in an overgrown thicket.

I don't know if I can post pics here but from what I understand he got lost right over the hill from we took these pics last fall, this is just off Boars Nest

[Honeycombe8]

7. Beautiful. n/t

[RamboLiberal]

6. Update to the story

Four days to the hour after an autistic teenager disappeared during a Sunday afternoon hike with his parents, rescuers found Jacob Allen today resting in a mossy mountain clearing.

Jacob AllenJacob Allen, 18, of Morgantown, was found in thick brush around 2:15 p.m.

Mr. Allen responded to his name by rolling over, said Jeremy Reneau, the volunteer searcher who found him, and seemed grateful to be around people again.

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He was shivering and his socks and windbreaker were wet, and he immediately drank several bottles of Gatorade and ate peanut butter and candy bars that the rescue group had on hand, said Emil Lehosit, who was part of the nine-man team that found him in West Virginia's Dolly Sods Wilderness Area.

"You name it, that boy was eating it," he said.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07291/826548-100.stm

[Honeycombe8]

8. Thank goodness. n/t