Hundreds of people spent Friday night searching for Thorpe. Even more search teams were out searching for a missing 3-year-old Saturday.
Rescue workers found him alive around 12:30 p.m. Saturday. He was taken to the hospital to be checked out. Three dogs were with him and authorities say they likely kept him warm overnight.
Before the boy was found, police and family said being with the dogs might save his life.
"They can be there to help keep him warm and hopefully if the dogs will come back, he'll follow the dogs back," Halifax County Sheriff Stanley Noblin said.
"I hope and pray they stick right by his footprint," grandmother and guardian Katherine Elliott said. "I just hope we find, we all can find him and he's okay."
Responders had search teams on the ground, helicopters in the air and bloodhounds tracking the boy's scent.
Authorities say it was a difficult area to search because there were abandoned copper mines, lakes and creeks throughout the woods. Every available tool that could help find the boy was taken to Virgilina.
The Virgilina community is north of the North Carolina line.
