A three-year-old boy reported missing from a rural property at Avondale has been found more than a kilometre from home, accompanied by the family dog.
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The missing child sparked a large scale search on Wednesday evening.
Search crews were called to a property off Avondale Colliery Road, west of Yallah, shortly before 5.30pm.
A large number of police, ambulance and SES rescue vehicles converged on the search area.
Crews aboard an ambulance rescue helicopter were also called in to scour the area.
Fortunately we had a small dog that resides here and he was with the child for the whole duration, and that was really good. That made it a lot easier for us when we were trying to track them down, knowing that there was another dog out there.
- Inspector Pederson
Lake Illawarra inspector Brian Pedersen said police searched the missing child’s home when they arrived at the property and confirmed he was missing.
“A search of the house was negative, we started to coordinate searching of the property up here,” he said.
“There was concerns in regards to a dam that approximately 300 metres from the house.
“We called the dog unit who came up with their tracking dog and it was approximately 25 to seven this evening the young child was located about one and a half kilometres from the house by one of our general duties vehicles on a bush track.
He said the boy was checked by paramedics and given a clean bill of health.
“Fortunately we had a small dog that resides here and he was with the child for the whole duration, and that was really good.
“That made it a lot easier for us when we were trying to track them down, knowing that there was another dog out there.”
Inspector Pedersen said police did not yet know how the boy had come to wander off from his home.
