DRESDEN  – Micah Thomas, the 12-year-old who was lost in the woods overnight last week, is out of the hospital and on the mend.

Micah was discharged from the hospital Saturday and is home recovering from complications related to being exposed to the cold and wet overnight, according to Peter Thomas, his step-dad.

Thomas said Micah is “recovering nicely.”

“We anticipate no long-term side effects,” he said.

Micah was admitted to Midcoast Hospital in Brunswick with early onset of frostbite in his toes, sore feet, an elevated heartbeat and dehydration, after he was found last Thursday afternoon. He has survived a night alone in the woods after he became lost the previous afternoon.

He was found by a local man, Tim Nason, in a marshy area near the Eastern River. Micah was cold and wet, and his shoeless feet blue and too swollen to walk.

A massive search ensued, involving law enforcement agencies, firefighters, wardens, rangers and others. Micah was ultimately located by Nason, who was not part of the official search crews, while he scoured his land along the west side of the river for the boy.

“Our family is eternally grateful to the various professional entities that were mobilized in searching for our son,” Thomas said. “We are especially thankful to those individuals who were not discouraged by the fact that volunteers were left waiting to be called, and who instead took it upon themselves to search other parts of Dresden.

“Had Tim Nason not done so, I am not certain that we have the same outcome.”

Micah, a seventh grader at Hall-Dale Middle School in Farmingdale, got off the school bus at the intersection of Eagle Lodge Road and Route 127 after school on the afternoon of March 14, according to authorities. But he never showed up at his house.

Thomas on Wednesday declined to discuss the circumstances surrounding Micah’s disappearance and why it happened, citing the boy’s age and a desire to protect his privacy.

Micah told Nason that at some point he took a boat to get across the Eastern River. Nason said last week Micah told him he had stepped into the water while getting out of the boat, getting wet at least up to his knees and soaking his boots.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com