Watch Entire Interview With Don Halpin; Man Who Rescued Toddler

The amazing story of the 3-year old boy missing for three days has a happy ending. Joshua Childers wandered away from his home Monday morning at around 11:30. But after nearly 50 hours in the rugged woods of the Mark Twain National Forest, he was found by a searcher, Donnie Halpin, in amazingly good shape.

Surviving in the woods with only a t-shirt and one shoe for 3 days in the rain and cold is a miracle to many people. But there are many unbelievable aspects to this story. Joshua ended up 3 miles away from his home, surrounded by two stray dogs. Halpin says he wouldn't have seen the boy had it not been for the dogs that seemed to be out of place. Halpin says he walked closer to see what they were looking at and he saw "two butt cheeks" up in the air.


His story is even more amazing because Halpin had actually gotten lost himself just before finding Joshua. He had just met up with officers who found footprints, but then lost track of his search party. "(I) got separated from my party and I was up there by myself and I just followed the roads to work my way back out. I seen two dogs off to the side messing around and I walked over to see what they were looking at." That's when Halpin says he saw the child's bottom sticking up in the air. "I said 'hey bud' and he sat right up."

Halpin was searching because the weather kept him from going to his construction job. "I said 'do you wanna go home?" Halpin asked the boy, "and he said 'yeah.'" Joshua was then taken to a nearby home where they called police to let them know he was okay.

Adding to this storybook ending, Pam Akers, the mother of Shawn Hornbeck, was in the house at the time of the rescue consoling the family when the call came in saying Joshua was okay.

Adam Childers, Joshua's father issued a statement after the rescue thanking the searchers. "I didn't know there was this many good people in the world. But there's so many people now I don't know how to thank everybody. My boy is safe and I owe it to everybody that's been out there in the last couple of days."