Missing and alone in the woods for 11 days, Brandon Brown’s family and friends had just about given up hope.

“We kind of thought he was dead,” said family friend Tammy Villa of Montesano.

Then, the morning of April 28, Brown’s aunt Ellie Sovereign answered her phone. Brown was on the other end of the line, asking for a lift to the home he shares with his dad, Bruce.

“I about fell to the floor,” said Sovereign. “I couldn’t believe it. I heard his voice and it just about stopped my heart.”

Sovereign and Villa agree, “It’s a miracle he made it out.”

When he was young, Brown developed a fever that overheated and swelled up portions of his brain, said Sovereign. The 34-year-old Brown suffered brain damage and is considered developmentally disabled, she said. He did graduate high school through special education courses.

Brown went missing April 18 while cutting wood in the Wright Canyon Road near Quinault. An intensive search was conducted, but it appears searchers may have been looking in the wrong area. When he was located he said the area in which he was lost was not where reporting parties said they last saw him. Brown said he did not ever see or even hear the search helicopter that was looking for him the first two days he went missing.

Brown spent the first three days lost sitting by a fire hoping to be found, said Villa. After three days his fire went out and he was unable to start another one. According to Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Brad Johansson, he found a creek and just started following it to the South Shore Road along the southern edge of Lake Quinault.

Villa said he found a home, and after making several failed attempts at contacting his dad, he called Sovereign, who lives right next door to Brown’s house.

During the eight days it took Brown to reach the road, he drank from the creek and ate some mushrooms he had found. Johansson said Brown had lost a significant amount of weight during his walk. Villa and Sovereign said he slept in trees at night to keep away from animals.

Attempts to reach the Browns were unsuccessful Monday.