A boy survived an underground odyssey in Oldenburg: Joe was found because a passerby had heard a soft moan in the direction of a manhole cover and alerted the authorities.
A happy ending in the case of Joe, an eight-year-old boy from Oldenburg who had been missing for eight days: the boy was found alive in a sewer, according to the police.
Joe was externally uninjured and was transferred to a hospital in Oldenburg, in the state of Lower Saxony. Only I had hypothermia a police spokeswoman told AFP.
The mentally handicapped child was missing since June 17. On Saturday morning, around 6:30 a.m., a passer-by heard a soft cry and immediately notified the police.
Just a few minutes later, police arrived on the scene with firefighters and first responders and freed the boy from the sewer.
Police announced this week that He had ruled out the possibility of someone else’s fault.
After analyzing all the traces and signs, the agents assumed that Joe had crawled down a drain into the storm sewer the day of his disappearance and that he had lost his orientation there following traveling several meters.
The sewer is located on a street in the same district as the boy’s parents’ home, in Donnerschwee.
Underground odyssey in Oldenburg for missing child
Joe had been desperately wanted in recent days, also with sniffer dogs, drones and helicopters.
Police also asked residents of the area to will help in the search and that they search in the hiding places that they knew, since at first they had assumed that the boy might misinterpret the search as a game.
Then on Thursday, investigators created a homicide squad because they no longer ruled out a violent crime. Initially, investigators feared a crime had been committed because a witness testified that he had seen the boy in the company of a stranger.
However, the story had a better ending. According to the Police, Joe would have been playing on a field and went up “most likely” in a nearby concrete drainage pipe with a diameter of 100 centimeters. This is how the odyssey began.
With the help of a camera robot, the police reconstructed the boy’s trajectory.
He first followed the drain pipe for 23 meters and then a branch pipe only 60 centimeters in diameter. There, following 70 meters, a robot found the boy’s jacket and, following another 65 meters, the rest of the clothes.
Between the entrance and the place where the child was found, there were ditch pits and branches at regular intervals, where the boy had been able to stand up.
The boy probably lost his orientation more and more. “A first statement from the boy confirms this assumption,” says a police statement.
Furthermore, according to the investigators, there is no indication that Joe might have remained outside this canal system during the eight days.
Investigators have not yet been able to question him in detail. The eight-year-old boy is still in the hospital.
At the same time, the Police requested that refrained from asking questions regarding the boy’s state of health Out of consideration for him and his family.
