9-Year-Old Boy Found Safe By Tennessee Rescue Teams Under Blue Tarp In Woods

When 9-year-old Jordan Gorman went missing on Nov 15, rescuers came together from all places to try and find the boy.

Jordan and his two siblings live with foster parents in Cheatham County, Tennessee, and went missing after a disagreement in the home. It was a great cause of stress to his family as the area around the house is heavily wooded and with cooler temperatures at night.

Endangered Child Alert

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation tweeted, “Endangered Child Alert,” it said, “A statewide ECA has been issued for 9-year-old Jordan Allen Gorman, out of Cheatham County. Jordan was last seen at his Ashland City home, wearing blue jeans and a grey short-sleeve T-shirt with red stripes on the arms. Call 1-800-TBI-FIND.”

🚨 Endangered Child Alert 🚨 A statewide ECA has been issued for 9-year-old Jordan Allen Gorman, out of Cheatham County. Jordan was last seen at his Ashland City home, wearing blue jeans and a grey short sleeve T-shirt with red stripes on the arms. Call 1-800-TBI-FIND. pic.twitter.com/Wzeo8gslAi

— Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (@TBInvestigation) November 16, 2020

They said the boy was “4 feet tall, weighs 75 pounds, has brown hair and brown eyes.” Jordan’s biological father, Aaron Hatt, said the boy had autism and was nonverbal when he younger. He would always be with his older sister and for him to go missing was concerning. The Endangered Child Alert was changed to an Amber Alert of imminent danger and with the temperature being in the 30s and 40s it complicated the matter even more.

No Sighting

The search teams covered the area with no sightings of the boy for the next 3-4 days and one of the volunteers, who is also a dad said, “Think about it in your perspective of, well what if this was my child, and that’s what makes you drive to get out there and find him,” Logan Fryar said. “And ride wood lines and thorns and everything like that just to help that one family because you know how it would be if it was your child.”

But on the third day, a Kentucky team spotted something out of place. Mathew Reese saw a blue tarp, at around 3 pm and realized it looked like something was underneath it. Fearing the worst, “As I got close to the tarp and noticed there was a mass in it, naturally the worst was going through my head initially until the tarp moved and it was just the biggest holy crap, I got him,” Reese recounted. “And it’s exactly what I said on the radio.”

“As soon as I realized he was there, radio backed to these two. Hey, I have him, I have him. Eyes on, hands-on, get up here.”

Blue tarp

Jordan used the blue tarp he found and put up a shelter for himself near a creek bed, just a mile from home. The boy was calm when they found him and warmed up later to them. “Very rare that you have a missing child with this outcome,” Josh Devine, spokesperson for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said.

The boy impressed many with his makeshift shelter, and Hatt was impressed that his son was able to survive cold temperatures alone in the woods. “He’s always just been really resilient and an explorer type but to be standing for two days with no jacket no shoes no socks,” Hatt said. “I don’t like going to the living room, let alone outside and walking three-quarters of a mile through the woods with no socks and shoes on, through sticks and rocks I mean it’s just crazy.”

Cold and hungry, but otherwise in pretty good spirits!

Good to see you, Jordan! ❤️#TNAMBERAlert pic.twitter.com/SLEVH8EIZE

— Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (@TBInvestigation) November 17, 2020