Evan Thompson emerged from four days and three nights spent lost in the Colorado mountains and fell into the tight embrace of Teddi Gray, his aunt and legal guardian.
Upon seeing him, she cried, “Evan, my little man, are you OK?” She said his reply was “Aunt Teddi, what’s wrong? Why are you upset?”
Gray learned that searchers had found Evan on Tuesday afternoon just after rescuers cut short a news conference she was giving while the 8-year-old was still presumed to be missing.
He had gone without food and water but otherwise was in good shape when found by members of Vail Mountain Rescue.
“I was just ecstatic and I started to cry, and it was the first time I had cried tears of joy in a very long time,” Gray said in an interview Tuesday night outside St. Thomas More Hospital in Cañon City.
Asked whether Evan understood how lucky he was, Gray responded, “We haven’t gotten to that point with him yet simply because of his cognitive abilities. He’s been off of his medication for four days.”
Gray said her nephew takes medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Gray said that when searchers found him, “he was just walking through the mountains, trying to find the tent. He got out there and he got turned around.”
While Gray had promised that she would take Evan out to eat his favorite foods – “a hot dog and pickles and a raspberry Slurpee” – the initial plan was to feed him small amounts of food.
The first thing he ate after searchers found him was a banana. He then ate a slice of pizza, drank some Sprite, and ate Jell-O and grapes.
She said he was upset the camping trip was over. “How come I can’t go back to the tent?” he asked Gray. “I was lost.”
Gray said that what her nephew wanted to do most of all – after days spent in the woods where nighttime temperatures dipped into the 40s – was take a hot bath.
