Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Family thankful, still amazed over rescue of 11-year-old

BOUNTIFUL, Utah - Jody Hawkins buckled and collapsed as she climbed into a sheriff's truck, convinced authorities were about to say her 11-year-old son had been found dead four days after getting lost in the Utah wilderness.

Instead came the shocker: Her boy was found alive. And not only that, but he was unscathed.

"I really didn't think he could survive that long in the wilderness," Hawkins said. "When they told me Brennan was still alive and in good shape, my brain still cannot comprehend that."

Jody and Toby Hawkins described their ordeal Wednesday during two news conferences at the family's suburban Salt Lake City home, where Brennan Hawkins made his first public appearance. He answered only one question, saying he felt "good."

The boy disappeared last Friday in the Uinta Mountains, about 100 miles east of Salt Lake City, somewhere along a dirt road at a Boy Scout camp. He was found on an ATV trail Tuesday by a volunteer looking for him outside the search area.

Brennan does not remember much of the four days he was missing, his parents said. They said they do not plan to push him to talk about his time in the woods, but they have learned a few answers.

He told his parents and a friend that he would sleep in a crouch, with his sweatshirt pulled down over knees to keep warm. His parents said Brennan took their advice too literally about avoiding strangers.

"When an ATV or horse came by, he got off the trail. When they left, he got back on the trail," Jody Hawkins said.

It is unclear if that delayed his rescue.

Brennan defied conventional wisdom during his time in the mountains: He went uphill instead of down.

As a result, search crews ended up in the wrong area.

[Last modified June 23, 2005, 00:47:00]