Ok, this just occurred to me- when Maddox was missing and the police and the Mom show up and the search starts- why didn't they hold the folks in the park until the search for the child was over? Just in case someone was trying to kidnap him? Did they interview any of those people that were there already before they left for the park? None of those folks had a clue Maddox was missing, nor did any of them stop what they were doing and try to help search with the police, parents, and park ranger?
Has this bothered anyone else? Especially with the police posting daily that if anyone was at the park at the time Maddox went missing, to please call them. They didn't have other police available to watch the park goers, just in case he was with one of them?
JMO
I have not followed this case too closely but I did watch quite a bit of the news tapes that were taped about the time he was found.
Assuming the boy just got lost like has been told then what bothers me the most is something the news touched on.
The news mentioned that search authorities kept the perimeter to mainly within the park grounds and its only after a number of days where they decided to expand the perimeter 2 more miles or so outside the park and then all of a sudden he is found.
From past cases I think the way search authorites approach these cases needs to be changed.
For one I think there should be a portion of the search group broken apart from the main group that would charge out to much farther extremes and work their way back into the main search area.
For example in this case it sounds like there were over 100 people or more helping with the search. A portion of that group could have been taken to way outside the area in the most logical direction the boy traveled and plant them about 5-6 miles out and then have them work back toward the main search group.
It sounded from the news that authorities were moving painfully slow in trying to do everything by the letter and making sure people do not get hurt. That is a good thing but when time is of the essence there also needs to be some haste and some willing to go out past the known areas to work backwards towards them.
Secondly IMO nobody should ever be turned away from helping to search. The news made it sound like there were lots of people that would have gladly joined the search and they were held back from participating. Im not sure what people they were referring to but this should not ever happen. Boots on the ground is what is needed and if there is a call to help search then anybody and everybody willing to search should be allowed to and they should be assigned to areas that still need covered.
There has been multiple cases now where I have heard about volunteers that were not allowed to participate and to me that is inexcusable when time is of the essence. I know we always have to keep safety in mind but if properly handled then that particular search could have used 500 searchers and not just a couple hundred. I can almost guarantee that if there would have been a news call for more searchers needed then people would have come out to help. And from the reporting there were quite a few that were not asked to help and they were already there watching from outside the perimeter and were told to stay back. That is just stupid to me to waiste people that are ready and able to help. That land around there was not like a mountain or anything. It was fairly flat land. Sure it was wooded and had some creeks but it was not super rugged terrain. Dense yes but not super rugged. The Rocky Mountains is super rugged. Not this place. So I think many more searchers could have been utlized.
With all that said I totally understand its easy to be critical after the fact but we have talked about this sort of thing in other past searchers so its not like its new ideas or anything. I think we sometimes have trouble changing old methods that may have worked in the past in different situations. This situation was unique in that it had a boy that could not care for himself so time was of the essence. If it had been an adult then maybe the person could have survived longer on their own but with this particular boy it was a dire emergency to find him as soon as possible.
Anyhow those are the two main ideas for changes that have been haunting me about this boys case. Get more searchers and get a group of them way out on the extreme ends and work backwards towards the group.
And if that outer group reaches the inner group and doesnt find them then rinse and repeat. Take another group out to the far reaches and work their way back again.
It of course may not always work but we have to start to think outside the box. And people always seem to go further than people originally think. I dont know how many times I have seen where people are surprised how far the missing person went. We need to start to expect that.
