A 12-year-old boy and his mother are safe and back home after spending a cold night along the Chehalis River in the forest near Chilliwack.
The mother and son were hiking in the woods last Friday, but got lost.
They spent a cold night in the forest, managing to light a fire, but split up at first light as the boy was trying to find their car and his mother’s medication.
When the boy didn’t return, his mother became worried and went looking for him.
According to Kent Harrison Search and Rescue, the mother arrived at a home on the Sts’ailes Reserve, about two kilometres away, and that’s when band members jumped in to help.
“I was at my kitchen window and I seen something walking down the trail here,” Robin Chapman from the Sts’ailes Nation told Global News.
She had seen the mother, who was crying about her missing son.
“She was terrified,” Chapman said. “First of all because her son was missing out there and she was just freezing cold.”
Chapman alerted others and the search was on.
“I dropped everything, went down, got ready, grabbed my quad,” band member Gary Leon said.
Multiple people searched for an hour-and-a-half before member James Leon spotted the young boy across the river.
He was on dry land but he was stranded.
“The current was fairly strong and moving at the time,” Leon said.
Leon waded across the river to get the child, slinging him over his shoulder and making it back to shore safely with the boy.
But the job wasn’t done as Leon had to wade back across to rescue the young boy’s dog.
All three were then reunited.
“It was just a good feeling, the mom bursting into tears,” Chapman said.
“It almost made me cry because she was crying.”
Kent Harrison Search and Rescue said in a Facebook post they would like to thank the Sts’ailes Band for their assistance with what could have been a tragic outcome.
-with files from Kamil Karamali