Rescued hostage boy is well

The grandmother of a five-year-old held hostage for a week in an underground bunker in rural Alabama has said the boy is fine physically, but that she fears the ordeal could stay with him the rest of his life.

Betty Jean Ransbottom said the boy, who turned six yesterday, seemed fine in hospital after his rescue, but the family is not yet sure how he is coping mentally.

The boy was abducted from a school bus last week after 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes shot the driver and took the child back to a bunker on his property.

Authorities raided the shelter after realising that Dykes had a gun, saying he appeared to be increasingly agitated and that negotiations had deteriorated, and he was killed by law enforcement agents.

Neighbours described Dykes as a nuisance who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property, and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a firearm.

A Vietnam War veteran, Dykes had had some problems with the law in Florida, one involving a weapon and another involving marijuana.

Ransbottom said that an FBI agent stayed with the family the entire time the boy was being held hostage.

They learned of his rescue when an FBI agent at the scene called the agent staying with the family.

She said she cried herself to sleep every night the boy was held hostage, and that she did not sleep much as she awaited news.

“It was horrible. I never went through anything so horrible,” she said.