Alabama woodcutter Eric Gilbreath, 37, drove two hours and searched a woodland area in the middle of the night to find Serenity Dawn Sander, 3, who had gone missing in the woods behind her parents’ house
An Alabama man who went out on his own to find a three-year-old girl who had been reported missing is being hailed as a hero.
Serenity Dawn Sanders, 3, was reported missing in the woods near her parents’ house in Dekalb County on Thursday around 7.30pm, WHNT reports.
Eric Gilbreath, whose son, Eric Jr, and Serenity share the same mother, got a call about the girl’s disappearance around 1am on Friday.
‘Your heart just falls out on the floor. My first thought was helping getting out there and looking,’ Gilbreath told WHNT.
‘I knew that I couldn’t sit here in Cullman, knowing that my son’s little sister was out there,’ he told the Cullman Tribune.
Gilbreath, 37, drove his truck, after getting $100 from a kind friend for gas and an emergency spare tire, and two hours from his Cullman home to Dekalb County, the Cullman Tribune reports.
Gilbreath’s son, Eric Jr, and Serenity (pictured) share the same mother. Serenity was taken to the hospital with minor scratches
Gilbreath said: ‘Your heart just falls out on the floor. My first thought was helping getting out there and looking’
Upon arrival around 3.30am, the woodcutter walked for hours with a spotlight in to until he found her and her puppy around 6.45am.
At this point, Gilbreath himself had gotten a bit lost. But the pair managed to find their way out, and Gilbreath alerted the girl’s mother to the rescue.
According to her mother’s account, the puppy started running around the yard and into the woods while she was checking on dinner. The girl followed.
The puppy disappeared when Gilbreath found Serenity, and has not been found.
The girl was transported to a hospital with minor scratches. Gilbreath said she did not cry at all.