Missing Pawnee Co. Kids Talk About Their Rescue

Four boys and two adults were riding dirt bikes and ATVs near Appalachia Bay on Keystone Lake when a joy ride took a wrong turn and became a nightmare.

Thursday, October 22nd 2009, 10:26 pm

By: News On 6

Missing Pawnee Co. Kids Talk About Their Rescue

By Ashli Sims, The News On 6

PAWNEE COUNTY -- A couple of Pawnee County moms are holding their sons extra close and that is after Four boys and two adults were riding dirt bikes and ATVs near Appalachia Bay on Keystone Lake and it all turned into a nightmare.

Appalachia Bay on Keystone Lake is a popular place for folks to hop on a bike and cut loose. Wendy Mullins says this wasn't the first time her son and his friends had been up here. They were under adult supervision, so she never expected to get a heart-stopping phone call.

"I got the call around 8 o'clock that they could not find them," said Wendy Mullins.

The boys were supposed to meet the adults in one hour. Time passed; night fell; the weather got worse, and those boys were nowhere to be found.

Wendy's 12-year-old son Brad, 12-year-old Payton Isbell, and their friends, another 12-year-old and his 14-year-old brother say they just lost their way.

"We kept going down to this place that we usually like to ride, because it's all sand. And we took a wrong turn and we couldn't find our way back up," Payton Isbell said.

"It was probably the scariest feelings I've ever felt in my life," said 12-year-old Brad Mullins.

Wendy called her friend who is a Tulsa police detective. He helped organize a search party. First responders from Pawnee County Sheriff's Office, Peninsula Fire Department, Westport Fire Department, Cleveland Fire Dept, North 48 Fire Department, Pawnee County Commissioner and Mercy Regional Ambulance came to help.

They found their bikes, but no boys.

"Horrifying to hear that and be standing there knowing ok, did somebody take them?" Wendy Mullins said. "Why are the bikes there? Why are they not with them?"

The boys decided to follow the water's edge, thinking that would lead them back to the beginning.

"We were walking along the sand, and we saw a flashlight so we screamed as loud as we could and then we heard voices," said Payton Isbell.

They had a few scrapes and bumps, but the boys made it back to their families in one piece. And their moms can barely express their gratitude to the searchers.

"We just thank them so much for that because that's part of why our boys are ok," said Wendy Mullins.