Four children, including a 2-year-old boy, were found alive Monday after surviving a night outside during a blizzard in rural Alaska, according to news reports.
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The children were located nearly 20 miles from the remote village where they vanished Sunday, about 22 hours before.
The children set out by themselves Sunday afternoon near Nunam Iqua on Alaska’s west coast, according to family members. They were on their way to a snow machine ride when they became stranded.
The mother of one of the children told local news media that she expected the kids back soon but “it became an hour and the weather started being bad, and that’s when we called for someone to go out and look,” Fox News reported.
Alaska State Troopers, the Army National Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard immediately launched a search, just as winter storm warnings were being announced across the region.
It wasn't until a day later that the children were discovered nearly 18 miles south of the village “cold, hungry, and tired,” officials said, according to reports by news station KTUU.
All four were transported to a local hospital, where they are being treated for severe hypothermia, reports said.
They are expected to be fine despite being stranded in dangerous weather conditions.
The children, who are all related and range in age from 2 to 14, somehow found shelter in the Alaskan wilderness.
Some officials suggested the children may have lost their sense of direction during the ordeal.
There were no immediate details about how the children were able to overcome many hours in the bitter cold..
The National Weather Service warned of wind gusts as high as 60 mph, and wind chills as low as 45 below zero, which can “cause frostbite in as little as 10 minutes to exposed skin,” the agency said in a weather advisory Sunday, according to reporting by CNN.
“At least three [of the children] were appropriately dressed for the weather,” Alaska State Trooper spokesperson Megan Peters told CNN.
The children were identified as 14-year-old Christopher Johnson, 8-year-old Frank Johnson, 7-year-old Ethan Camille and 2-year-old Trey Camille.
“It immediately brought me to tears,” Alphonso Thomas, the father of 2-year-old Trey, told the local TV station in Anchorage. “I never would have thought that he would make it. Being 2 and with weather like that, people usually don’t make it ... tough kids, all of them."
