Little Bobby's Journey

A few years back my little borough had  a tragedy that still hurts, one you may have seen or read in the news. A story of a little boy with autism. I'll call him bobby for I can only remember his 1st name and only part of his last name. Bobby was a little boy about 6 or 7 years old who loved bright lights, playgrounds and just loved his pink backpack, carried it with him where ever he went. Like any other kid he was full of energy and liked to go exploring as long as mom or dad had a watchfull eye on him. Bobby from time to time would break free of mom and or dad and go missing but for only a brief moment, except for his last voyage.

It was December 22nd we got the call on our pagers that there was a missing child within the borough, we responded to get our info were giving a picture of Bobby and a description of what he was wearing and his famous back pack. He was wearing his everyday street clothes and a light jacket and slippers, surely not enough to keep him warm for very long as we had a bitter cold snap move in. The temp was below freezing and expected to drop below zero overnight. Within an hr after his disappearance news quickly spread and the number of people searching for Bobby extended to strangers from as far away as Harrisburg which is 2 hrs away to our south, the numbers continued to grow and teams were set up and grids were formed.

Being our small community sits between the Susquhanna river and the Bald Eagle mountain range, the terrain can be very challenging for even a experienced hiker, most areas can only be reached by foot so even atv's are of little use. I recall one searcher had to be rescued as he snapped his ankle on some tree roots and it took a team of 30 or so firefighters and EMT's to bring him out of the woods. As far as I recall he was the only injury during the extensive search of Bobby. We had the State Police helicopter and one other one from another agency both using TMI (Thermal Imaging Camara) which picks up temperature differences to within 1 degree, the flew over the mountain side picking up deer running throughout the woods as well as those searching for Bobby, radio communication was key as the search now included people off the street, people were looking under porches, around playgrounds and back yards as the temperature dopped below 0, Firefighters worked grids with other agencies along the mountain which had a few inches on snow making the search that much more difficult. We worked now stop through out the night, not giving up responding to possible sightings through out the borough and surrounding areas.

News came around dawn he had been found, just near the top of the mountain less then 10 feet from Skyline drive road by a DEP official checking state game lands. I talked to the guy that had found Bobby about a year later while doing a forrestry pack test, he showed us the spot where he had laid down to rest and It wasn't till later that we found out that Bobby wasn't alone. Animals no matter how wild will protect us, be with us and sometimes guild us to safety. With just finding Bobby's body doesn't mean the search is  over, there's looking for clues and gathering evidence, from his starting point to his resting place, with that we found that a deer had laid down with him shielding him and attempting to keep him warm, Bobby was found with his back pack and missing one slipper, rest well Forever Bobby your still in our hearts.