An intrepid toddler who went walkabout, wandered over three miles and ended up spending the night sleeping out rough was yesterday reunited with his relieved parents after a major search involving over 100 people.
Emmet O'Gorman, two years and 11 months old, went missing while visiting his grandparents, Mr Bob and Mrs Theresa Woods, at their hilltop farm at Clouncarrigeen, Ballinacarrige, near Dunmanway in west Cork on Sunday evening.
But around lunchtime yesterday, after spending 19 hours on the rough hillside terrain, Emmet was reunited with his parents, Geraldine and Kieran, after being found three miles away by a farmer, Mr Frank Nixon, and his wife, Kathleen.
Emmet had been playing with his brother, Deane (5), and his cousins, Ciaran (10) and Cathal Woods (8), on Sunday afternoon when he disappeared some time before 6 p.m.
The family and neighbours organised a search of the farm but failed to find him. However, their hopes were raised when a farmer reported seeing Emmet walking along a boreen three-quarters of a mile from the farm at about 6.30 p.m.
Gardai were alerted, and a search involving a Garda aircraft with sensor equipment carried out several sweeps of the furze-fenced fields, boggy drains and woodland, but without success.
With many marshy drains crisscrossing the hillside and an icy wind pushing night temperatures close to freezing point in exposed areas, the family's fears for the child's safety deepened.
The O'Gormans had to endure an agonising wait while a slurry pit on the farm was cleared. "Once the pit was emptied thoroughly and we were 100 per cent convinced he wasn't in there, that raised our hopes and all our spirits really," said Mr O'Gorman.
The search operation was stepped up yesterday morning with dozens of local people coming from miles around to assist gardai under Supt Noel Galwey in the search as word of the O'Gormans' plight spread quickly through the neighbouring communities.
Gardai concentrated the search near where Emmet was last spotted, but as the morning rolled on without any trace of the youngster's whereabouts, many of the searchers began to fear the worst.
Searchers probed and prodded ditches, and a number of neighbouring farmers drained their slurry tanks.
Then approaching lunchtime, the news that everyone had been hoping for came through, Emmet was alive and well.
He was found by Frank and Kathleen Nixon and their son, David, at their farm at Kilvurra, Ballineen, some three miles from the Woods farm. The toddler had been in a field near some cattle.
The Nixons brought Emmet back to his relieved parents at the Woods' farm where neighbours and those who had helped in the search gathered around and cheered as his emotional parents hugged their second of three children.
The O'Gormans later took Emmet to Cork University Hospital for a check-up where he was given the all-clear by doctors before returning to the family home at Clonakilty where he was reunited with his brothers, Deane and Ryan (11 months).