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Bohemian Forest: How a gamekeeper found the missing eight

2021-10-12T17:51:36.124Z


The search lasted two days and two nights, and with each hour a happy ending became less likely. Then the missing eight-year-old girl was found - by a man with local knowledge.


Enlarge image

Search on the mountain Čerchov, in German Schwarzkopf: »A little bit of luck«

Photo: Miroslav Chaloupka / imago images / CTK Photo

He found her in the middle of the forest, they say.

A Czech ranger with a good knowledge of the area is the description of the man who became a hero on Tuesday around 2 p.m. for finding a girl.

The eight-year-old lay in a bush, completely exhausted, unable to draw attention to herself.

After two days and two nights, the search for a child who disappeared below the mountain Čerchov, in German Schwarzkopf, between Bavaria and the Czech Republic, ended at that moment.

1400 emergency services looked for her in the rocky terrain.

On horseback - and from the air, with drones and helicopters.

Search dogs sniffed for tracks.

Mountain rescue services, fire brigade, police, the technical relief organization, Czechs and Germans, they were all involved.

The Bavarian Red Cross in Cham spoke of the largest cross-border search operation that has ever taken place in the region.

“It is a miracle that we managed to find the child”.

Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) spoke of a "pinch of luck".

The eight-year-old from Berlin disappeared late on Sunday afternoon while hiking with her family in the Bavarian-Czech border area.

The parents had lost sight of the child, the six-year-old brother and a nine-year-old cousin below the mountain and called the rescue workers.

At first they only found the brother and the cousin.

"Life-threatening and serious danger"

Because of the impassable area with many rocks and crevices as well as dense tree cover, the search turned out to be arduous.

The rescue was a race against time, also because of the icy temperatures that approached freezing at night.

The police assumed a "life-threatening and serious danger" for the eight-year-old.

On Tuesday morning it had been said that the girl's chances were falling by the hour.

Even a thermal imaging camera was unsuccessful.

The treetops are too close, the clearings too seldom.

In between earlier military objects - the entire border region was a restricted military area on the Czech side during the Cold War.

Foresters checked photo traps, perches and feeding places for animals.

And they looked under rocks from which the child might have fallen.

In the end it succeeded: The Czech helper found the girl hypothermic, but not in danger of life, according to the police three and a half kilometers away from the summit of the Schwarzkopf.

Presumably the child moved again and again and walked several kilometers in the forest.

Why the eight-year-old disappeared is unclear.

The girl is now receiving medical care, and psychologists are taking care of the child's family.

jpz / dpa / AFP

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-10-12

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