Boy went missing while camping with his family—managed to brave the ‘elements’ before a search party found him

An 8-year-old boy managed to keep himself alive for two days after he was lost in a Michigan park in the snow. The kid, Nante Niemi, had gone camping with his grandfather and three uncles when he went missing. He had gone out to collect firewood with his uncle, who told him to get back to the tent. However, Nante didn't get a chance to tell him that he didn't know the way back as the man had already turned around and left, per ABC News.

"I prayed for being found and not stuck out here for the rest of my life," Nante expressed. "My uncle said to go back to camp. And I couldn't say, I don't know, all the way back to camp because he already turned around and left. I was trying to go diagonally into the part where we came from and I ended up by a river. I wasn't even close to the part where we first went up." The family immediately started looking for the missing boy, but had no luck in finding him. Eventually, one of the uncles contacted the boy's parents and emergency services for help. "They took some time to search for him and couldn't find him. And they decided they needed to give up and call for help," Jessica Buerger, the boy's mom, recounted.

300 people started looking for the boy in a 60,000-acre area, per Jason Wickstrom from Michigan State Police. "It's very hilly, rough terrain. And this time of year, with snowmelt and the rain that we've had, there was a lot of standing water and the rivers were very high." The mom was really worried that Nante was out by himself at night in the cold and hoped that he wouldn't walk around by himself and stay in one place. In the meantime, the boy tried to think positively about the situation and ate snow when he felt hungry. "I just ate snow. Just because I usually do it in the winter." He also saw a helicopter and tried to get its attention, reported GMA.

"I was waving my hands in the air and yelling at them to get their attention. I saw a helmet poking out of the side of the helicopter, but they didn't see me." He sought shelter under a log until he was found one afternoon two miles away from the family's campsite, two days after he went missing. "I heard people yelling my name and I saw one green thing hanging and then I saw somebody. I ran straight to them." Nante was glad to get back to his family and for getting to eat food after two days.

"I ate a Clif bar and a primo meal sandwich. It tasted good." The family was grateful to the people who rescued Nante and threw and barbecue for them to show their gratitude. Although the boy had a scary experience, it didn't put him off camping in the future. "Yeah, I'm still going to go camping." The Michigan State Police, who go by @MSPEighthDist on X, wrote, "Nante has been located safe and has been reunited with his family! A volunteer searching found him under/near a log, where he had been the entire time, about two miles from the campsite. He appears to be in good health!"