Miracle: in diapers, no lifejacket, toddler on 3rd bday navigates toy truck for 2 hrs, 12km downriver till rescued

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Before being saved on Sunday morning (July 12), a missing baby boy was "navigating" his battery-powered toy truck in a wild ride down B.C.'s Peace River for 12 kilometers over 2 hours on his 3rd birthday. When spotted, the toddler was kneeling on all fours on top of the overturned car, sitting in about three meters of water, according to Fort St. John RCMP. "He was wet from his knees down, and his hands were wet, but this torso was okay". Rescued from the swirling 10ft deep water, the boy was insisting that he wanted to get back on his “boat”, and he “had made his truck into a boat and rode down the river.” The baby navigator was in good shape except for needing a diaper change.

The boy was not wearing a lifejacket, just a diaper and T-shirt at the time. He went missing from his family's campsite in the Peace Island Park just after 7 a.m. Sunday. Campers joined Fort St. John RCMP in a full-scale search of the park to find him. Don Loewen spotted the boy more than two hours after he went missing while searching the river with four other men in his boat.

"We just kept going down the river watching all the log jams and keeping our eyes out for any sign of the car or the boy," Loewen told CTV British Columbia. "We spotted something sitting on the east banks that looked like some rocks or an eagle or something." What the men believed were rocks were actually the black tires of the overturned toy truck sticking out from the water. "And what we thought was an eagle or something was the little boy's blond head sticking up there," he said.

Jones was kneeling on all fours on top of the car, sitting in about three metres of water, according to Fort St. John RCMP. "He was wet from his knees down, and his hands were wet, but this torso was okay," Loewen said. The men approached the boy slowly, as not to tip the small toy truck over with the wake of the boat. "I shut off the boat and I jumped into the water and swam over to him and the boys idled up to him with the boat and we pulled him in," Loewen said. "We started wrapping him in our floating coats and started rubbing him and rubbing him until he got warm."

"That couldn't have happened twice in a million so I'm thinking he's one heck of a lucky guy," Loewen said. The toddler was reportedly back on his toy truck by the end of the day. Fort St. John RCMP Const. Jackelynn Passarell says the boy handled the incident remarkably well. Others say, the careless parents & the boy should thank their lucky stars.

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Photos courtesy of Adam Reaburn / Energeticcity.ca, and www.ourbc.com

Original Source: CTV British Columbia and Times Online