2 Toddlers Survived for Days in Arkansas Ravine After Car Crash Killed Their Mother

A 3-year-old boy and his 1-year-old brother survived for several sweltering days in an Arkansas ravine after a car crash that killed their mother, the authorities said this week.

The children were found on Monday after the 3-year-old found the strength to climb out of the sunroof of the car, which was upside down and on its side, said Nathan Greeley, a detective with the Ouachita County Sheriff’s Office. He said the authorities were not sure when the crash occurred but believed it may have been Friday.

The body of the mother lay a few feet away and the boy went over to try to wake her, his grandfather, James Holliman, told the local NBC affiliate, KARK. Hot, hungry, exhausted and scratched all over, the boy wandered onto Highway 24 near Camden, Ark., about 85 miles from Little Rock.

He was found by a driver around 7:30 a.m. on Monday and was quickly taken to the Ouachita County Sheriff’s Office.

“He just wanted human interaction,” said Detective Greeley, who helped take care of the boy at the office. “He was mostly hungry, thirsty and scratched from head to toe.”

Sheriff’s office employees bathed the child and bought him new clothes. They tried to get him to open up so that “maybe he could tell us who his mom was,” Detective Greeley said, but the boy would not speak.

Detective Greeley, a father himself, took out crayons and paper for the boy, and he asked him what colors the crayons were to try to get him to speak.

“My parental instincts just kicked in,” Detective Greeley said.

The boy initially did not talk, but suddenly he said “look” and pointed to a scraggly drawing he had made in red crayon.

Members of the sheriff’s office, wanting to learn the circumstances that placed the child on Highway 24 by himself, took photos of him and posted them on the office’s Facebook page.

“We put his picture out there and we were able to identify the family members,” Detective Greeley said.

The family told the police they had not seen the child’s mother in several days, so the officers “decided to go back out there and do a more detailed, thorough search,” Detective Greeley said.

Shortly after starting their search, the authorities found the car, a hunter green Chevrolet Impala, according to Detective Greeley.

“If you were a passer-by, you couldn’t see it off the side of the road,” he said.

When the officers approached the car, they found the 1-year-old, strapped into a car seat in the back.

“The vehicle was slightly unstable and the baby was almost turned on its side,” the detective said. An officer crawled into the car and cut the seat out of the car with scissors. The child seemed dehydrated, Detective Greeley said.

“He was awake and alert, but you could tell he seemed happy to have human interaction,” Detective Greeley said. “I wanted to hold him and not let go. We’re all a big family ourselves.”

Soon Mr. Holliman came to pick up his grandchildren, whom the authorities did not identify. He told officials that his daughter, Lisa Holliman, 25, had been pregnant at the time of her death.

“We lost two,” Mr. Holliman told KARK.

“It was hard to see my grandson laying there like that, all cut up,” he said.

The boys are now with their grandparents. Mr. Holliman and other family members did not immediately return phone calls or respond to emails and Facebook messages.

Detective Greeley said he saw the 3-year-old boy again the day after he was taken into the office.

“He was in good spirits and a completely different child,” the detective said. “He even talked to me.”