But as rescuers, disheartened by the deaths of 54 people as tornadoes sheared through the southern U.S. this week, worked their way through the field a second time, they realised they had stumbled across a miracle.
"It's not a baby doll - it's alive," called out David Harmon, 31, an emergency worker from nearby Wilson County.
According to the Washington Post, he had first thought the boy was made of plastic. Then, he said, he saw the baby move.
Scene of devastation: The tornado tore through houses and felled trees across Lawrence County
The 11-month-old, dressed in a T-shirt and diaper, was lying in a field of tall grass nearly 300 feet from the duplex where he once lived.
He was face down in the mud, covered in bits of grass like many of those who had been cast about by the dozens of tornadoes that had careened across the South.
Tornadoes and thunderstorms ravaged parts of the southern U.S. Hardest hit were Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama, with unconfirmed sightings of 69 tornadoes on Tuesday and yesterday.
A baby diaper is seen at the wreckage of a home near where Kyson was found, miraculously alive
The storm system stretched as far north as Ohio. Trucks were crumpled and houses, factories and shops were flattened.
But unlike at least 54 people the baby, named Kyson, had survived. He was tossed by winds that had not only flattened the brick post office next door but that had killed his 23-year-old mother, throwing her several yards in the opposite direction, into some fallen trees.
Medics on the scene said Kyson was " cold and scared, and he had this blank look in his eyes". Rescuers described their relief when the baby, mute as he was picked up by rescuers and cradled in a fireman's jacket, finally began to cry.
"It's a miracle they ain't both gone," Doug Stowell, 45, Kyson's grandfather, a carpenter and tile worker who drove up to the scene last night and found his daughter, Carrie, dead and his grandson alive, told the Post last night.
"He was found over 300 feet from his home, and that was demolished - I mean wiped clean."
It was a welcome miracle among the devastation.
The storm system stretched as far north as Ohio. Trucks were crumpled and houses, factories and shops were flattened.
But unlike at least 54 people the baby, named Kyson, had survived. He was tossed by winds that had not only flattened the brick post office next door but that had killed his 23-year-old mother, throwing her several yards in the opposite direction, into some fallen trees.
Medics on the scene said Kyson was " cold and scared, and he had this blank look in his eyes". Rescuers described their relief when the baby, mute as he was picked up by rescuers and cradled in a fireman's jacket, finally began to cry.
"It's a miracle they ain't both gone," Doug Stowell, 45, Kyson's grandfather, a carpenter and tile worker who drove up to the scene last night and found his daughter, Carrie, dead and his grandson alive, told the Post last night.
"He was found over 300 feet from his home, and that was demolished - I mean wiped clean."
It was a welcome miracle among the devastation.
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Article from: The Daily Mail - go HERE for full story