RICHMOND, Ky -- Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD) Assistant Fire Chief Elmo Adams left work the morning of October 14, 2018, after completing another routine 48-hour shift on the Depot. His next 21 hours would be anything but routine. Not long after arriving home, he received word that 3-year-old Eden Hines was missing from her Red Lick home.

Adams, a lifelong resident of Red Lick and co-founder of the Red Lick Volunteer Fire Department (RLVFD) -- as well as its Fire Chief -- immediately notified his local volunteers to join him in the search with the Kentucky State Police (KSP), Madison County Sheriff and Fire Departments, as well as a large contingent of other organizations and concerned citizens.

By the time a command post had been established, and first responders and volunteers were being coordinated, it was midafternoon, with a 7 p.m. sunset approaching. The loss of sunlight and the cooling temperatures were concerning. The forecast low was for the mid-40s, but in the steep ridges and valleys of the mountainous terrain around Red Lick, temperatures easily could drop an additional 10 to 20 degrees. The start of rain added even more concern.

Around nine or 10 p.m., a break was received when a resident who lived in the mountainous region, reported he had found small footprints in the mud near his property, which lead to the additional finding of an insole from a child's rubber boot. It was promising. However, the search of the area continued well into the night without success. At some point, the command post was closed and most of the volunteers had left. Chief Adams and others stayed on the job.

"We we're coordinating with KSP and the Madison County Fire Department who were still on scene with us searching the area where the footprints and insole were found," says Chief Adams. "For a while, we moved back off the mountain to regroup, and at that point one of the KSP officers asked me 'hey, do you think the kid's there?' I told 'em I know the kid's up there. So they put us back in the area around 4 a.m. to coordinate a chopper search in the area of the footprints. There was about eight or nine of us that headed back up in the same woods. I was calling in GPS coordinates for the chopper when the guy standing next to me happened to turn his flashlight up into the woods and, believe it or not, there she was...sittin' between a rock and a log. She wasn't talking or crying. Just staring straight at us. Even though it was only about two miles from her home, it's a steep, rural, mountainous area. How she got there I'll never know.

"Since we had searched that same area an hour or two earlier, the best I can figure is that she fell asleep but was probably woke up by the sounds of our ATVs. It was just one of those deals. The good man above seen fit to put us back in that same spot we were earlier to find this kid. There's no feeling like it when we got that kid. I admit that given my experience in fire service and rescue -- and the timeframe, terrain and weather involved -- I had got the mindset earlier that this wasn't going to be good…but the man above seen different.

"But I wasn't the only guy there. There were some very dedicated guys with me from different groups…and we all stuck it out together. It was pouring rain and weather conditions were terrible. It was a bad time to be outside. But Eden was fine, just cold and wet, but good to go."

"Assistant Fire Chief Adams exemplifies the type of dedicated professional firefighting and first-responder professionals that make up the BGAD Fire Department, as well as all the men and women who work at BGAD," says BGAD Commander Col. Joseph Kurz. "It truly is an honor to serve alongside such everyday heroes."

RLVFD Chief Adams and others involved in the successful search and rescue of Eden Hines have not gone unnoticed. Adams and others have been invited to the Kentucky State Capital on November 13 for recognition of their services that night by Gov. Matt Bevin.