6-Year-Old Roman Heilman Found Alive in Kentucky Woods After About 44 Hours, Rescuers on Horseback Reach Him

Roman Heilman walked out of the brush onto a horse trail in Lawrence County, Kentucky, around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3. He had been missing since Sunday afternoon.

Kentucky State Police confirmed the recovery. The boy, who has autism and does not speak, was about 1.5 miles from his home on Tadpole Road in Louisa. That works out to roughly 44 hours in rough, wooded mountain terrain.

The disappearance

Roman was last seen between 3:45 and 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, on Tadpole Road, according to Lawrence County Emergency Management. He weighs about 60 pounds and was wearing a green fur jacket, red and white monster pants and Crocs.

Kentucky State Police issued an IAN Alert. Kentucky uses that alert when a child under 18 with autism or a mental illness goes missing and may be in danger.

On Monday, Nov. 2, emergency management asked neighbors to check yards, outbuildings and vehicles. It also told volunteers to check in at a staging area on Highway 1690 at 8 a.m. before searching. Officials said Roman responds to "If You're Happy and You Know It," and told searchers to sing and clap to get his attention.

The search

More than 300 volunteers searched on foot and on horseback. Kentucky State Police, the Kentucky National Guard and search-and-rescue teams from West Virginia and Ohio joined them. Helicopters and drones covered the ground from above.

Searchers followed a muddy footprint to Roman's jacket, pants and diaper. Travis Hughes, the Lawrence County emergency management director, said that made the search more urgent.

"We knew this child was without clothes and we knew there was weather moving in, raining," Hughes said. "So we wanted to put our horseback teams in there with the ground searchers."

The moment he was found

Jacob Mullins, a Louisa-area trail rider, said his friend Patrick Finley texted him Monday night: "Let's take off work and go find this kid." Mullins said that is what they did.

About 10 riders were in the woods before daylight Tuesday. Mullins said they covered more than 14 miles.

Then Roman came out of the bushes onto the trail with a small dog. He was naked and scratched. Hughes said he came out right behind the dog, pointed at the horses and said, "E-I-E-I O."

"He ate a banana and drank some water and then we brought him off the hill," Mullins told the Lexington Herald-Leader. He said the riders wrapped Roman in a sweatshirt and carried him out on horseback. Hughes said the team wrapped him in a blanket and gave him food.

What worked, by the rescuers' own accounts

Mullins offered a pointed view of the search itself. He told the Herald-Leader that the noise from rescue vehicles and aircraft may have been "scaring him." "I think without the horses, he wouldn't have come out," Mullins said.

The officials running the operation described a layered effort. Hughes said the horseback teams were put in alongside ground searchers because of the weather and the boy's lack of clothing. Helicopters, drones and ground teams all remained part of the operation, according to the agencies involved.

K9 Search & Rescue Services of West Virginia, which sent a team but did not make the find, praised the volunteers. "Alongside hundreds of first responders and volunteers we witnessed something today that words simply cannot describe," the group said in a statement. It called the outcome a "miracle."

Condition

Roman was taken to a local hospital and treated for dehydration. Officials said he was recovering as of Wednesday, Nov. 4. They have released no further details on his medical condition.

Kentucky State Police and emergency management have also not laid out how Roman covered the distance he did or where he spent the two nights. The dog stayed with him, officials believe, but how he survived the cold and rain remains unexplained.