Too often, when the newspaper headline or television news bulletin says, "child missing," the follow up reports, days or weeks later are not good - usually a body is found or the search is fruitless. This week, however, a search for a missing child had a happy ending.

An 11-year-old Utah boy had become lost on the way back from a climbing wall to a nearby Boy Scout camp in the wilderness about 60 miles east of Salt Lake City. After climbing together, Brennan Hawkins' buddy headed back to camp, assuming his friend was right behind him. Instead, Brennan took several wrong turns and became disoriented in the woods, ultimately wandering for four days before being found by a man on an ATV who looking outside the designated search area.

While great relief and joy are the dominant emotions among Brennan's family and fellow Scouts, there are lessons to be learned. The first lesson, is the basic Scout rule to look out for your buddy. The friend's decision to head back to camp without waiting for Brennan could have cost a life and scarred many other lives for years.

Another complication in this story is found in the description of Brennan, who was born prematurely, as being immature and a little slow, though not mentally disabled. This quality most likely caused Brennan to reportedly hide from several searchers who came close to him two days into his ordeal, because he remembered his parents telling him to avoid strangers.

Regardless of the strange twists in this tale, the "found alive" part of the story is all that matters.