An autistic boy from Doswell, Va. who went missing Sunday has still not been found as more than 1,000 volunteers combed the area Thursday, ABC News reports.
Carrying walking sticks and wearing yellow reflective jackets, the volunteers began lining up before dawn to be taken to the forest where they were to look for 9-year-old Robert Wood, Jr.
Eddie Buchanan, division chief of Hanover County Fire/EMS, told ABC News that so many volunteers showed up on Thursday that hundreds were sent home after receiving training, in the hopes they would return on Friday.
No searcher goes into the field without receiving protective gear and being taught by an autism specialist how to interact with Robert, should they find him. "It's so that they understand that in case they do get lucky and encounter him, how to handle that so they don't scare him or make things worse," Buchanan told ABC News.
"I have an 11 year old, and if the situation were reversed, I would hope people would be out helping me look for her," a man named Don, who stood in line for hours in the parking lot of an amusement park to take part in the effort to find the missing boy, told ABC News.
According to ABC News, Hanover County sheriff's officers say Wood, who does not speak, ran off from his father while they were visiting North Anna Battlefield Park on Sunday.
