Boy back at home following three-day ordeal in Australian woodland

A police image of the boy. Picture:New South Wales Police/AP

A three-year-old boy who spent three nights lost in rugged Australian woodland was playing with toys at his family home, as his family and rescuers celebrated the happy ending to a desperately difficult search.

Anthony “AJ” Elfalak, who has autism and is non-verbal, was taken to hospital for observation after he was found on Monday sitting in a shallow creek and drinking water with cupped hands on his family’s remote rural property near the village of Putty, north of Sydney.