Baby buried alive in the woods found unharmed after nine hours

A baby boy left for dead in the woods was rescued unharmed after nine hours, in what officials describe as a “miracle” of survival.

The drama began on Saturday night, when Missoula County Sheriff’s Department received reports of a disturbed man threatening to draw a gun in a rural area of western Montana.

Arriving on the scene, they found that the suspect had fled, but witness warned them that the man, 32-year-old Francis Carlton Crowley, had been looking after a five-month-old baby who had not been seen for several hours.

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When deputies apprehended Crowley shortly after, he “was under the influence of drugs and was not making sense to officers”, CNN reports.

Asked about the infant in his care, Crowley told officers he had buried the baby boy in the surrounding Lolol National Park, sparking a frantic night-time search to recover the child.

“Deputies and officers from United States Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Montana Highway Patrol quickly formed a search party” to comb nearby woods and mountains, says NBC.

More than six hours later, as hope appeared to be fading, a sheriff’s deputy heard a “faint cry” and discovered the missing baby “face down, buried under a pile of sticks and debris”, CNN reports.

Remarkably, the infant, dressed only in a babygrow in the 8C temperatures, appeared unharmed by the ordeal. After a medical evaluation uncovered nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises, the child was handed over to Montana Child and Family Services.

“This is what we call a miracle,” the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. “For the officers who were present for this event, it’s especially hard knowing what this small baby endured in the last 24 hours.”

Crowley, who was on the run from authorities in Oregon at the time of Saturday’s incident, has been charged with criminal endangerment and is scheduled to appear in court today.