Missing kids survive snowstorm thanks to brotherly love

After 24 hours in the freezing cold, the boys are rescued and share a touching tale.

Help Aleteia continue its mission by making a tax-deductible donation. In this way, Aleteia's future will be yours as well.

Donate with just 3 clicks

*Your donation is tax deductible!

Recently, a group of brothers in Alaska took a snowmobile ride only to get lost in a blizzard. The kids, aged 14 to 2, were reported missing when they were five hours late returning home to their rural village of Nunam Iqua.

The local authorities were concerned, as one of the children was not dressed appropriately for the extreme weather, with winds expected to gust up to 60 mph, and near-freezing wind chills. As the National Weather Service explained, this could result in frostbite to exposed skin in less than 10 minutes.

Thankfully the children were found just in time thanks to their resourcefulness and the keen eye of a volunteer rescuer. In fact, although the area had already been searched, a member of search and rescue, Bryan Simon, went by with his team and spotted a strange mass on the snowy horizon. They moved in to check what it was, to find the boys all huddled together.

The kids had dug a foot-deep hole in the snow that was about three feet in diameter, explained Simon, and two-year-old Trey Camille was in the middle, being protected by his big brothers.

“The [baby] was in there, and the boy laid over the [baby], and on his left side, a little older boy covering the draft. And the 7-year-old was laying right above them like he was blocking the wind,” explained Simon to Greg Kim for Alaska Public Media.

Fellow rescuer Herschel Sundown shared: “I won’t get in exact detail, out of respect for the boys, cause from what I hear, they’re still in some critical condition, I’ll just say it didn’t look good.”

Thankfully the children, including Christopher Johnson, 14, Frank Johnson, 8, Ethan Camille, 7, and toddler Trey, are all on the mend after their ordeal according to their grandfather, Kake.com reports. But as Sundown explained: “In all honesty, I don’t know how they survived. The will to survive in these boys is amazing. I have never seen anything like that.” Perhaps it could all be put down to brotherly love.