Search 3-18,19-07

ENGLEWOOD - When Lou Warnock went to bed Sunday night, he knew that tucked back in the rugged hills behind his Minnesota Street home, dozens of rescuers were crawling through the tangled brush in search of a little boy lost in the wilderness.

“I went back to bed thinking they'll keep beating the brush,” the 62-year-old Weyerhaeuser retiree said.

Five-year-old Romig Beley had been reported missing at 5:45 p.m. Sunday after being separated from some friends playing in the woods.

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter's peering searchlight blazed across Warnock's property more than once that night - keeping him awake. After a restless night's sleep he puttered around in his shop. It was raining outside. He heard the helicopter overhead again and thought to himself: “That kid is still lost.”

So he grabbed his favorite walking stick and Gore-Tex coat and set out for a hike in the woods he's lived by for the last 40 years. He knew the boy's chances of surviving the night were good. It hadn't been too cold, and the rain didn't come until early Monday morning.

“I thought he'd be out here hunkered down someplace ... walking, lost,” Warnock said of the boy he's never met.

As it turned out, Romig wouldn't be lost for much longer. Warnock walked about 300 yards west of his home on a 1-foot-wide trail that led into a morass of tangled brush, cedar and fir trees.

At around 8:30 a.m., Warnock heard a dog bark. Warnock knew that 17 hours earlier, Romig had last been seen with a black Labrador named Nelly.

Maybe this was her?

“This boy's got to be here somewhere,” Warnock remembered thinking.

And then sure enough, about 5 feet off the trail he saw the boy, huddled in the fetal position with a black dog. Warnock called out to the boy, but the droning of the nearby chopper blades drowned out his voice.

“He was in a little swale, all curled up. This kid was laying there like he was asleep, or in shock. He didn't move. I reached over and picked him up and said: ‘You're going to be OK. You're fine now. I'm going to get you out of here,'” Warnock said recollecting the events in his garage a few hours later.

Warnock said Romig barely spoke to him and never cried.

“He just looked at me with these big, wide eyes,” Warnock said.

Romig's terrifying overnight in the pitch black woods was over.

“It was better than winning the lottery to find that little boy,” Warnock said.

Warnock placed the boy, who he said looked dazed, in his lap, and fed him tiny Vienna sausages from a can and let him drink from his water supply. He then whisked the boy off with Nelly in tow, to awaiting rescuers at another home on Minnesota Street.

“The whole world was there,” Warnock recalled.

Romig, and two other boys, had been missing since 3:45 Sunday afternoon after they got separated playing in the woods. Parents and neighbors searched for the boys on their own for two hours and then called police. Within an hour, two of the boys, an unnamed 9-year-old, and 5-year-old Trevor Soyc, were found by the search party.

However, Romig and Nelly remained missing. Coos Bay Police Capt. Rodger Craddock said Romig's parents told police it was the first time the boy had ventured into the woods.

A mighty force of rescuers had been assembling Monday to find Romig. Coos County Sheriff's Deputy Dan Stone, who headed up the search efforts Monday, said he and Coos Bay Police Department's Cal Mitts had about 25 fresh searchers ready to take over for those who worked through the night when the word came in that Romig was alive and well.

“These guys worked their tails off trying to find him,” Warnock said.

Romig's father, Robert said this morning that his son didn't appear any worse for the wear and was heading back to school today.

“Right when we picked him up, he was in a little shock,” Beley said.

He has nothing but praise for the dog.

“That dog is a real hero to me,” Beley said. “She stayed with him and helped his morale.”

Neither Beley, nor his wife Barbara, got any sleep on Sunday night. The rescuers tried to keep their spirits up.

“They said: ‘Don't give up hope.' We were just trying to keep a good attitude,” Beley said.

Along with a search team, Stone said an investigation team had been enlisted in case “something is awry.” Stone said the chief scenario that kept crossing investigators minds was a possible kidnapping. Craddock said the FBI investigators en route were called off.

“We were thinking more along the lines of an abduction,” Stone said. “We're police, you know. For some reason, even though I have been in the woods my whole life, the last thing I was thinking was about him getting eaten by an animal.”

Luckily, neither scenario proved to be the case.

Nelly likely played a key role in helping the boy, rescuers said. Warnock said he thinks the dog stayed with Romig all night, and may have kept him warm. Stone said Nelly's insistence on staying likely comforted the boy.

“More than likely the dog was laying by him all night,” Stone said.

Medical staff examined Romig at the scene and found no visible injuries, officials said.

“He looked scared, cold, shaken up a little bit. I'm sure If I was 5 and lost in the woods I would be petrified,” Stone said.

Warnock, an avid hiker who grew up meandering about the maze of trails at Sunset Beach and Cape Arago, said he thought his stumbling upon Romig was fate.

“It was just meant to be,” Warnock said. “I just had this urge to go up and take a look. It was a good way to start the morning.”

How a 5-year-old managed to survive the night alone in the woods was remarkable by all accounts.

Craddock credited three things.

“In my personal opinion,” he said, “the help of a dog, luck and the grace of God,”

- Staff Writer Carl Mickelson can be reached by calling 269-1222, ext. 234; or by e-mailing him at cmickelson@theworldlink.com.