‘Aching hearts’: family cling to hope for missing boy
Robyn Wuth |
The desperate family of a missing preschooler are clinging to hope he’ll be found alive days after he vanished from their outback homestead.
Four-year-old August, known as Gus, disappeared from his family’s sheep station in the remote South Australian mid-north on Saturday afternoon.
While a major search of the area continued on Tuesday, his distraught family released a statement saying they were “struggling to comprehend what has happened”.
“Gus’s absence is felt in all of us and we miss him more than words can express,” family friend Bill Harbison said on behalf of the family.
“Our hearts are aching and we are holding on to hope that he will be found and returned safely.”
The adventurous boy had been playing in the sand near the family home when he disappeared.
Despite frantic efforts, his family found no trace and called emergency crews to widen the search around their property near Yunta, about 300km north of Adelaide.
Extensive ground searches involving State Emergency Service volunteers on trail bikes, all-terrain vehicles, dogs and a drone have been carried out, while helicopters, police divers and mounted officers have also been involved.
Fears are escalating for the safety of the missing boy, but police do not believe his disappearance is suspicious.
The sheer scale of the potential search area has proven to be a major challenge for authorities.
“The area here is really vast and while it’s all low lying and undulating, you just need to go over a little crest and you can actually disappear,” Superintendent Mark Syrus said.
“What we’re really trying to find is some type of clue to where, what direction he was going, he was travelling, and once we find that clue, then that just gives us an area that we can cover.”
During the day, police relied on crews physically searching the area, combined with helicopters sweeping the property, Supt Syrus said.
At night, authorities used police aircraft and drones equipped with infra-red technology to look for possible heat sources.
“It is such a big area … so that’s a challenge for us and we’re just methodically going through our search processes to make sure that we cover off on that,” Supt Syrus said.
With the search in its fourth day, police haven’t given up hope of finding the preschooler alive.
“We always work on the worst case scenario – he hasn’t had any water or food, but we’re hoping that he’s just crawled up underneath a bush somewhere and just stayed put, conserving some energy,” Supt Syrus said.
“The human body is an amazing thing and we’re hoping that he’s just stayed put, kept out of the sun.”
Gus has long, blond, curly hair. He was last seen wearing a grey sun hat, a cobalt blue T-shirt with a yellow minion on the front, light grey long pants and boots.
AAP
