The boy survived with nothing but a few scratches.
A 21-month-old boy was found alive in the bottom of a ravine after two nights alone in the woods near his home in Italy.
Nicola Tanturli, who wandered from his home in Palazzuolo sul Senio, Tuscany on Monday evening, was found yesterday by a TV journalist investigating his disappearance.
RAI state television journalist Giuseppe Di Tommaso was covering the story of the missing child when he heard whimpering and groaning coming from the ravine around 3km from the family home. He started to call the boy's name in hope it was him.
"He answered with a feeble voice, 'mamma,'" Di Tommaso
said.
The child kept calling for his mother as the journalist made his way into the ravine.
Di Tommaso hailed two passing Carabinieri officers, who initially believed the groans to be that of an animal.
Danilo Ciccarelli, commander of the Carabinieri of Scarperia, climbed down the embankment that little Nicola had dropped 25 metres to.
"I expected an animal to come out," he said. "Instead, Nicola came out with his head in the tall grass, and he said me 'mamma' as I approached.
"I immediately checked if he had any lesions. He had nothing, just a small bump and a few scratches.
"Then he clung to my neck, and I took him to the street with the help of the journalist in the last stretch. It was a wonderful joy, it was wonderful to bring him back into his mother's arms."
The toddler was then taken to the Meyer Children's Hospital in Florence as a precautionary measure.
"I extend a big thank you to the people who participated in the search," Nicola's father, Leo Tanturli, said after the family were reunited. "We have had hours of despair, then the great relief of the news that they had found him."
He explained how he and his wife were in the garden about 20 metres away from their isolated house in Apennine mountains, when Nicola must have gotten out of the home and went walkabout in the opposite direction.
Church bells rang out in the town of in Palazzuolo sul Senio to celebrate the boy's safe return.
