MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. ( WKRG ) — 7-year-old Jackson Hillman was reported missing in Chunchula back on June 6 of this year.
For nearly 9 hours, his family and people in the community were worried sick about the child’s safety in hopes that he’d return home with his two dogs.
Search and rescue crews were on the ground covering the wooded area for miles, searching for the child.
Then finally, the news broke that Jackson had been found alive. One of the teams a part of the rescue efforts was the Rural Enforcement Unit with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office.
“It was all a big teamwork event,” Tanner Whipkey said. “Without these guys, it definitely would have been a lot tougher.”
Tanner Whipkey was the one who first spotted Jackson.
“It’s just that fatherly feeling,” Whipkey said. “I could hear a kid, you know, crying and so it just kind of made me think about my own child and I just rushed to him and scooped him up, gave him a hug and got him out of there.”
A sense of comfort that Jackson’s family had hoped for.