“I know I’ve checked every corner,” Jason O’Connell, a veteran SES volunteer, began. “We spent hours walking across vast fields, shining lights into bushes and waterholes, but… the boy was not on that property.”

Jason, along with dozens of other volunteers, has been part of the weeks-long search for 4-year-old Gus Lamont, who went missing at Oak Park Station in South Australia. Every effort had a single goal: to find the boy alive, or at least find some trace of him.

“We found a single footprint, about 500 meters from where he was last seen. But after that, there was nothing,” Jason said, his voice heavy with sorrow. “It’s a frustrating feeling when you’ve searched meticulously and still have nothing to guide the next step.”

He emphasized that everyone is exhausted, yet no one has given up. “Even though the police and professional rescue teams have searched, every volunteer hopes to be the one to find him,” Jason shared.

He also expressed concern about the vast area Gus could have wandered into. “Standing in the middle of the sprawling outback, with the wind blowing and darkness all around, you realize just how difficult it is to search for a four-year-old child.”

Yet, Jason remains hopeful: “We will keep searching, one step at a time. He’s out there somewhere, and we won’t stop until we know for sure what happened.”

For volunteers like Jason, Gus’s disappearance is not just a mission — it is a test of patience, hope, and human compassion amid the harsh wilderness and the eerie silence of the South Australian Outback.