Houston Chronicle Sunday

Missing child is found alive

3-year-old boy safe after lost for 3 days

- By Charlie Zong

After an extensive search, 3year-old Christophe­r Ramirez of Plantersvi­lle was found safe Saturday morning about 6.5 miles from the Grimes County woods that he vanished into Wednesday afternoon.

Christophe­r disappeare­d while chasing a neighbor’s dog as his mother unloaded groceries at their home in the 1000 block of Deer Park Lane in Plantersvi­lle, about 60 miles northwest of Houston, authoritie­s said. He was wearing a bright green shirt and Mickey Mouse shoes.

He was found at 11:15 a.m. Saturday by a landowner in a wooded area in the 7700 block of FM 1486, said Grimes County Sheriff Don Sowell. Paramedics and Christophe­r’s mother met him there, and he was taken to Texas Children’s Hospital in The Woodlands for evaluation, reported KTRK.

“He was smiling and drinking water,” Sowell said. “He was alive, laughing, cutting up, crying. His mother was crying.”

After Christophe­r’s family reported him missing Wednesday, the search expanded to include over 150 people on Thursday and 100 on Friday. The effort was complicate­d by a lack of tips and rough terrain, according to local agencies and volunteer groups.

“In my 53 years of law enforcemen­t, I’ve never seen (a search) this detailed, No. 1,” Sowell said at a Saturday news conference. “And No. 2, with hardly any facts to go on.”

Texas EquuSearch founder Tim Miller told KHOU that the heavily forested area made the search “one of the most difficult”

the volunteer group has ever helped conduct. The organizati­on provides volunteers on horseback to canvass remote areas for missing people.

“We were running on prayers, four-wheel drive and overdrive,” Sowell said. “Because we had nothing else — nothing else.”

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