Autistic 17-Year-Old Found Alive After Six Days Lost in Australian Bush Near Walhalla

A 17-year-old boy with autism was found alive Thursday after six days lost in woodlands in eastern Australia, police said. The boy, identified only as William, had begun camping with a teenage friend when he disappeared last Friday near Walhalla, a former gold-mining town about 185 kilometers (115 miles) east of Melbourne. A police helicopter crew found him asleep on a flat rock beside a creek. He was shirtless and sunburned, wearing shorts and boots and using towels as blankets, according to video shot from the helicopter. Police said he was in good spirits and mostly in good health, and he was taken to a hospital to be monitored. He was reunited with his mother, Elizabeth, who said she was over the moon that he was alive and joked that he was grounded for life. The AP withheld the family name to avoid identifying the teenager. His family has said he has Level 2 autism, which the advocacy group Autism360 says requires substantial support and can involve reliance on routine, with disruption causing significant distress.

CBS News, on the left, carries the AP report with the mother's joke in its headline. It gives distances in kilometers first and adds that police video showed Elizabeth embracing her son after the helicopter landed. The New York Post, on the right, runs the same AP text under a plainer headline about the teen being found alive, uses miles only, and omits the embrace detail. It continues into the autism description and the mild spring weather in the alpine region, and the excerpt shows no divergence in facts. Both sides agree on the timeline, the location, the condition of the teen, and the mother's quotes. Their differences are in headline framing and small details, not in claims. BBC News, the alternative source, offers only a short headline and the mother's joke in its excerpt.