The parents of 11-year-old Luke Shambrook, who went missing in Victorian bushland for four nights, have described how it became increasingly difficult to hold on to hope that he would be found alive.
Speaking at the Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne where their son was being treated after being found by rescuers on Tuesday, Tim and Rachel Shambrook said Luke’s disappearance had been traumatic.
“There was nothing we could do that would bring him back quickly,” Rachel Shambrook said.
“We just had to trust in all the services out there helping us. I guess the length of time that Luke was in the bush, particularly with no concrete evidence or sighting, made it harder than we might ever have imagined.”
Every morning when he woke, Luke’s 10-year-old brother, Matthew, would check Luke’s bed to see if he was back, she said.
“As the time went on for us, hope that he would be found alive was getting harder to have,” she said.
“To such an amazing outcome ... Yeah, it’s hard to even express it into words. I don’t know what more to say.”
The massive search for Luke began last Friday after he wandered off from his family at the Candlebark camping ground near Lake Eildon. He was found about 3km from where his family had been camping.
His mother described the moment a police officer told her Luke had been found.
“He’s called out, ‘Rachel,’ and I sort of stuck my head out [of the tent] and he just had that look on his face and he said, ‘We’ve got him, he’s OK.’
She then had a “desperate urgency to get to him”, his mother said. She rushed to her son, who had been placed on a stretcher suffering from dehydration and hypothermia, and kissed him on his head.
The Shambrooks thanked search and rescue staff, park rangers, emergency services, hospital workers, their church group and the community for their help in finding and treating Luke, and for their support.
Luke, who has autism and limited verbal communication, had shown a level of resilience that had surprised even them, his parents said.
It was still unclear to them how Luke had survived, they said.
“His resilience has just blown us away,” his mother said. “If only we could have a snapshot of what his time out there in the bush was like. The concept of trying to understand what he did and how he survived is beyond what … We’d like to just have a glimpse of what he did at night.”
But Tim Shambrook said his son had been going with his family to Lake Eildon since he was a year old. It made it likely that Luke would not have stressed too much about being there alone, as it was a place that brought him a lot of happiness, his mother said.
“He had a real sense of belonging there,” she said.
“Luke is, um, is very much I guess in the passive part of the [autism] spectrum that I guess attributes to his more relaxed, cruisey approach to life in general.”
Luke also had a high pain threshold, his father said.
Their family would continue to go camping at the site, they said.
On Thursday, they said Luke finally got to eat an Easter egg, having been in the bush over Easter, and said he was still exhausted and that it would take more than a week until he was back to himself.
“He had a little bit of Weet-Bix this morning, and chocolate milk is one of his favourites but it’s still very slowly does it while he gets back on to his food,” his mother said.
“We’re looking forward to Luke’s continued improvement after such a stressful and traumatic time for him and our family. We just feel glad and we think he’s a very resilient boy.”
