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Brennan's Unexpected Reaction

Among the obstacles volunteers looking for Brennan Hawkins faced was the boy himself.

Wary of strangers, the 11-year-old Cub Scout missing in the Utah mountains for four days didn't declare himself to searchers who unknowingly rode horses near him. Another searcher found him shortly after.

Several of the searchers spoke to The Early Show Wednesday.

Cory Harris and Tony Garrett

co-anchor Harry Smith they rode right past Hawkins without realizing it.

"When we finally talked to him," Harris recalled, "he said that he had seen us and he was a little ways off the trail. And he was just afraid to talk to us. So we continued to ride, and we went down about 300 yards, and we turned around and came back because we felt like we were going the wrong way. At that time, the rider on the ATV had seen him. He had walked out and was standing in the middle of the trail. That's when we pulled up."

Garrett said, "He was very frail at the time. He was very cold, shaking. We were checking him out to make sure he had no broken bones or anything like that. We found out that he was very wet. So at that time we all went into our bags to find as much as we could to get his clothing changed on him and get him warmed back up and covered up. Just to start to take care of him.

"He was (delirious, from dehydration). He was very unsure of where he was and what he was doing.

"I asked him, 'How come you didn't call for us?' He said, 'You guys were strangers.' I said, 'Brennan, you got so many people up here looking for you.' I said, 'It's incredible what's going on.' I said, 'You're on the news and everything.' He said, 'I am?' "

Added Harris, "He seemed to be totally unaware of everything that was going on."

But, "When we came over that crest of that road there and saw him, we were overcome. It was quite an experience."

Garrett concurred: "(There were) cheers and hollers. Lots of smiles."

Volunteer searcher Forrest Nunley is the one who found Hawkins, CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes reported on The Early Show.

"I just turned a corner (in my ATV) and right in the middle of the trail, there was a little kid standing there. I didn't know if it was him, if it was real. It was, 'Wow.'"

"Every ounce of my body was shaking and just happy and in disbelief and just so overwhelmed that wow I actually did find him."Brent Lechtenberg, another of the first rescuers on the scene when Hawkins was found,

co-anchor Julie Chen Hawkins was "absolutely spent. Very nonverbal, noncommunicative. But it was really funny. He was actually kind of polite as we gave him water and a few little snacks. He was obviously very hungry and thirsty. But very delirious probably is a really good word."

Lechtenberg was instrumental in overcoming Hawkins' reticence: "It was clear that he was kind of frightened, along with the fact that he was very, very tired. My son happens to know Brennan. There's a considerable age difference, but they have a very close bond. And I let him know that I was Ty's dad and that Ty was worried about him and I could bring him to see Ty. He immediately almost snapped up and wanted me to take him to him right now. I think that helped kind of establish a little bit of trust. And rapport. But he was very, very, very tired and very delirious."

"You would think that he would be a lot more responsive in describing what he had been through. But I was amazed, as I think some of the other guys that were there, he just didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about how he'd spent four cold nights, where he'd slept, what he'd done, how he had somehow avoided all the rescuers who were out looking for him. So it was really something very different than we expected."

Still, Lechtenberg continued, "You can't imagine the excitement and the jubilation when we did find him. We were jumping up and down and high-fiving each other and giving each other hugs. It was remarkable."

John Knight and Bruce Davis also volunteered.

Davis

co-anchor Hannah Storm he saw Hawkins in the hospital Tuesday night: "It was tremendous. What a heartwarming thing it was to see Brennan looking into the eyes of his mother, holding her hand and his father with his arm around him at the head of his bed. It was just overwhelming and heart-wrenching to see that."

Knight said he "was there when we were able to announce to the searchers that we had found Brennan. You just heard wailing and cheers of joy, just an outburst of emotion. Just four days of searching all culminated in that moment. The volunteers were just so grateful that he'd been found."

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