A Minnesota community pulls together in search for missing girl

There’s plenty in the news to get justifiably worked up about but let’s squeeze in one little ray of sunshine before we return to our regular programming.

On Friday, authorities in St. Peter announced that the search for Mya Ann Arriaga, 12, was shifting to the Minnesota River. She had wandered out of her house. She’s non-verbal and his a special needs child. Once the officials started searching the river, it seemed the chances of finding her alive were pretty slim. These things rarely turn out well around the river.

They found her clinging to a tree in the river on Saturday. Alive.

The people around St. Peter took part in the search,too. In fact, she was found by deer hunters.

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“I was amazed. I was amazed that she was conscious and at one point she was sitting up. She’s been in the elements since at least 3:30 yesterday morning. That’s a long time,” St. Peter Police Chief Matthew Peters told KARE.

“It’s not just me who found her,” Nathan Stoffel, one of the hunters who discovered and tried to rescue her, tells the St. Peter Herald. “It was a group effort.”