A four-year-old boy who disappeared from a California campground has been found almost a day after he went missing in Fresno County.
On Friday, June 21, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a statement that Christian Ramirez had been found by members of the Tulare County Search and Rescue Team.
Ramirez, who was rescued around a “quarter mile away” from where he was reported missing, was described as being in good condition but tired and hungry. He has since been reunited with his parents.
In a video shared by the Sheriff’s Office, the little boy was carried by a member of the rescue team while holding onto a sandwich.
“After missing for 22 hours, search and rescue team members found Christian Ramirez nestled under a tree near Huntington Lake,” the Sheriff’s Office wrote. “He was hungry and exhausted, but otherwise in good health. We got him a sandwich and then carried him out to be reunited with Mom and Dad.”
The video also captured Ramirez being hugged by his father, as well as him eating his food and being wrapped in a jacket.
“It was pretty clear that he had been lost and he had kind of hunkered down for the entire night,” Fresno County Sheriff’s Lt. Brandon Pursell told CNN affiliate KABC. “There’s a lot of things that could have gone really, really wrong with this one, and we got lucky, the family got lucky. The boy is very, very fortunate to be with his family.”
Authorities had previously reported that Ramirez went missing at Huntington Lake just before 11 a.m. on Thursday.
“A family at the Rancheria Campground reported their 4-year-old boy was missing,” they stated at the time. “They had been searching for him about an hour before they called our department.”
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team searched for Ramirez in the northeastern region of the lake alongside Forest Service rangers and officers from California Fish & Wildlife officers and an air support unit.
