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MINERSVILLE, Beaver County — A Taylorsville family went to Beaver to create memories but didn't expect the trip to be so eventful.
Sondra and Xavier Wilson's 3-year-old son, Maurice, also known as Momo, got lost when the family was doing some rockhounding west of Milford on Friday night when he walked off.
"I'm like, Xavier, have you seen Mo? And he's like, no, I haven't," Sondra said.
No parent should ever have these thoughts, but Xavier and Sondra Wilson did at that moment.
"(Momo) should be able to hear me, and so I was like, 'He has fallen and broken his neck, and he is dead already,'" Sondra recalls. "Like that's what happened. And I was like, 'That's probably the truth, but I have to hope that it's not.'"
Hundreds of people, including the Beaver County search and rescue team, searched all night for him.
Just before 9 a.m., after 15 hours, someone yelled they had found him. Xavier Wilson feared the worst until he saw him.
"(Momo) had his hands and legs, and he was sitting there, and he could talk a little bit, and they told me ... he was doing pretty good," Wilson said.
The worst nightmare of your life, and this whole community comes out for you.
–Sondra Wilson
Momo was crying and a little scared but speaking. Beaver County Sheriff Cameron Noel said it doesn't seem like Momo ever slept, which may have helped him.
"We've never done like, 'If you get lost out in the wilderness, what do you do?'" Sondra Wilson said. "And I mean, he's 3."
Momo was taken to a nearby hospital and checked out. Doctors say no frostbite, hypothermia or anything wrong at all.
"They took him to the hospital and warmed him up and hydrated him, and as soon as he got some fluid in him, he was just smiling and chatting and his normal self," Sondra Wilson said. "It was God. Just a miracle."
Momo is alive, back in his mother's arms, and the family can't thank all those who helped enough.
"The worst nightmare of your life, and this whole community comes out for you."
