Scottown boy who got lost in the woods found after 12 hours

Published 4:57 pm Monday, July 12, 2021

SCOTTOWN — An autistic Scottown boy who went missing on Saturday was found safe after 12 hours of being lost in the woods.

Brody Davis, 12, was reported missing to the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office around noon, about an hour after he left his Township Road 74 residence.

The family thought he may have gone up the road to see his grandparents. He normally took an ATV, but that was still at the house and the grandparents hadn’t seen him. His shoes were also still at the house.

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“He’s the type of kid that normally stays in the yard,” said Lawrence County Sheriff Jeff Lawless.

The sheriff’s office called for assistance from other agencies to help locate the boy.

“For the search, we had fire departments, we got a helicopter from the Ohio State Highway Patrol to fly a grid pattern and search, the Huntington Police Department sent over a dog to search,” Lawless said. “And there was family, friends and neighbors. There were people on horseback, on ATVs and on foot. It was a pretty elaborate, extensive search that went on for a long time.”

After it got dark, the helicopter pilot radioed the sheriff that they were heading back because they had done all they could do and were saying their goodbyes when they spotted Davis as they were heading north to Columbus.

“They happened to fly over him and hovered over him until we could get people into the woods and find him,” Lawless said.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol released the footage of Davis being found on their Facebook page.

From the video, the pilot of the helicopter spotted the boy just after 10 p.m. and it took about half an hour for three rescuers on ATVs to find him in the dense woods.

The boy opens up his arms and the rescuer picks up Davis and carries him to the ATV.

Seconds later, more rescuers appeared on scene.

Lawless said the boy was wearing flip flops and was unharmed.

“He just had scratches from the brush, but other than that, he was relatively ok,” the sheriff said.

Lawless said the boy said he got turned around in the woods and got lost.

Lawless said finding the boy was the result that they had hoped for.

“A lot of effort and a lot of prayer went into this,” he said.