Associated Press
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press
WAYNESVILLE, N.C. — Eight Boy Scouts who got lost while camping in the North Carolina mountains turned up Monday as searchers scoured the heavily wooded area for the troop, officials said.
“They’re fine,” said Donna Johnston of the Boy Scouts’ Occoneechee Council in Raleigh. “They’re out of the woods.”
Johnston said the boys and their three leaders had gotten off a trail and decided to set up camp for another night. They waited until daylight rather than trying to walk out in the dark.
Kathryn Logan, whose brother was among the lost Scouts, said he was finally able to get cell phone service Monday morning and told her the troop had gotten off the trail.
“They had plenty of food and water. They just camped out another day,” she told CNN.
Charity Sharp, spokeswoman for the Cruso Fire Department, said the search was a precaution in case any of the boys might be injured.
Firefighters and search and rescue crew members checked a five-square-mile area near Black Balsam Knob in southern Haywood County overnight, and a fresh search team of 15 to 30 people with tracking dogs went out after dawn on Monday, Sharp said.