Hawaiian Airlines Returns to LAX 3 Times Before Being Canceled; Officers Work Tirelessly to Find a Missing 3-Year-Old Boy in North Carolina.
BLACKWELL: A 3-year-old boy in North Carolina was missing for nearly three days in rain and freezing temperatures.</s>PAUL: Cnn's Brynn Gingras introduces us to the officers who went beyond the call of duty to find him.</s>BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deep in this swath of pine trees amongst the thorns and briars, a lost little boy was found.</s>SHANE GRIER, CHOCOWINITY EMS: It took some force to get him out of it. I actually had to pull him out of the vegetation.</s>GINGRAS: Against all odds, 3-year-old Casey Hathaway was rescued, 55 hours after he went missing from his great grandmother's North Carolina home. It was a tip that led Grier to this very spot at the edge of the woods.</s>GRIER: And that's when we heard him say mama.</s>GINGRAS (on camera): Clear as day?</s>GRIER: Clear as day.</s>GINGRAS (voice-over): Grier is one of hundreds of local and federal emergency responders who tirelessly searched for Casey through rain and freezing temperatures.</s>CHIP HUGHES, SHERIFF, CRAVEN COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA: Casey is a small child, he's cold, he's hungry.</s>GINGRAS: The massive operation was under the command of the Craven County sheriff Chip Hughes.</s>HUGHES: We started looking at the percentages of what is the chance a 3-year-old child in the elements with the wildlife that's in the area, bears, coyotes is going to survive this. The odds were not in our favor.</s>GINGRAS: It's a search that captivated the nation and brought a community together.</s>HUGHES: People were -- when they showed up, you could see the look of determination. You know, Casey is -- he belongs to all of us now.</s>GINGRAS: All the while, Hughes promised Casey's family, he'd bring their boy home.</s>HUGHES: That was a tall promise I made to this lady, and we were committed to stay to the end.</s>GINGRAS (on camera): And you kept that in your mind, it sounds like?</s>HUGHES: Exactly. And when the rescue pulled up, the doors opened and I saw this, you know, 25-pound child, 3-year-old there with his eyes open, big brown eyes, it was tear-jerking, this was when we made good on our promise. I would have stayed out there an entire year just to make that happen.</s>GINGRAS (voice-over): Casey's body temperature was low, but he only had scratches. He told his parents he befriended a bear. His family emotionally thanked law enforcement.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're very thankful that you took the time out to come search for Casey and prayed for him.</s>GINGRAS: As for Grier, he'll never forget that gratitude. He now keeps this picture in his office, a gift from Casey's family of Grier and the little boy he saved.</s>GRIER: I think everybody at some point in time was expecting a real bad ending from this and for the ending to be so good, I mean, you know, a little boy is home because of the efforts that everybody did here.</s>GINGRAS: A reminder of what he humbly calls a miracle. Brynn Gingras, Cnn, Craven County, North Carolina.</s>PAUL: No doubt, a big thanks to those officers. So a flight from Los Angeles to Maui ended with a lot of frustration for these passengers, why their plane was forced to turn around three times before they finally said we're cancelling.