In 2001, Harrison Ford joined a search and rescue operation after Cody Clawson got lost near Yellowstone National Park, and successfully located the missing boy.
Clawson FamilyCody Clawson, the Boy Scout who was saved by Harrison Ford after getting lost in Yellowstone National Park in 2001.
During a Boy Scout camping trip in 2001, 13-year-old Cody Clawson got lost in Yellowstone National Park. After spending more than 18 hours in the wilderness, Clawson was rescued by the last person he would ever expect: the actor Harrison Ford.
When Clawson went missing, Ford — who lived part-time in the area — volunteered to help. Using his helicopter, he flew over Yellowstone National Park with a fellow rescuer to search for the missing boy. Clawson used his Boy Scout knowledge to send a signal to the sky, and Ford was able to locate him and bring him home safely.
Now, more than two decades after the event, Clawson is still grateful as ever.
Cody Clawson Goes Missing In Yellowstone National Park
Bob Matcuk / FlickrYellowstone National Park, located in parts of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.
Born in 1989, Cody Clawson was just 13 years old when he got lost while camping in Yellowstone National Park with his Boy Scout troop. Originally from Huntsville, Utah, Clawson traveled to the national park with Troop 241 and stayed at the Loll Boy Scout Camp in early July 2001.
On July 9, Clawson was carrying supplies back to the camp from a vehicle parked in a nearby parking lot when he took a wrong turn. As he walked deeper into the wilderness, Clawson quickly lost his bearings.
“We had just got to the camp and started unloading and I started to follow somebody who I thought was my dad. I lost track of him and before I knew it I was completely lost. I was just 13, I was pretty scared. I stayed where I was for about half-an-hour but no one came, so I started wandering, then I got really lost,” Clawson recalled to the Daily Mail in 2015.
Eventually, he ditched his sleeping bag, air mattress, and two empty water packs, and continued walking through the forest trying to find his troop. As night fell and rain began pelting the boy, he found refuge in a small cave.
“It rained and sleeted that night,” Clawson told ABC News in 2015. “It was pretty scary.”
Wearing a soaked t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, Clawson shivered through the night and narrowly avoided a group of bears that walked past his shelter. In the morning, he fetched water from a nearby creek.
By this point, Clawson had already been missing for 15 hours, and a massive search effort had been organized in search of the Boy Scout.
“When I got the call Monday night [that Cody was lost], I was ‘No, no, this isn’t happening,'” Clawson’s mother, Peggy, told the New York Post in 2001.
However, back in the wilds of Yellowstone, Clawson used his training in the Boy Scouts to flag down a helicopter that was flying in the area by flashing his belt buckle at the sky. At first, Clawson thought the aircraft had not seen him, but it soon landed in a clearing on a nearby hill.
Cody Clawson was ecstatic and relieved to be saved — then to his shock, he realized that it was actor Harrison Ford who had saved him.
Harrison Ford Saves A Lost Boy Scout
DreamWorks / Twentieth Century Fox Harrison Ford in the film What Lies Beneath, released a year before Clawson’s rescue.
Unbeknownst to Cody Clawson, Harrison Ford was living part-time in Jackson, Wyoming. When he heard that Clawson had gone missing, he immediately joined the search-and-rescue mission to find him — and, in fact, it wasn’t the first time that Harrison had volunteered for such a mission. Just a year earlier, he’d used his helicopter to rescue a hiker in distress on Wyoming’s Table Mountain.
Harrison and a fellow rescuer spotted Clawson’s belt buckle flashing below, and landed their helicopter nearby. As Harrison waited, the rescuer got out to find Clawson, and led him back to the aircraft.
Before Clawson could climb in, the rescuer told the 13-year-old that he was in for a surprise.
“This guy came down and was shouting my name. I was so relieved,” Clawson recounted to the Daily Mail. “[The guy said] ‘we’re here to get you, but you’ll never guess who’s flying the helicopter.’ In my mind I was like, ‘I really don’t care,’ I just wanted to get out of there.”
However, after getting strapped in, Clawson couldn’t believe his eyes.
“The pilot turned round and said, ‘Good morning,'” Clawson recalled. “The way he said it reminded me so much of his role as Han Solo in Star Wars. Then I was like, ‘Oh my God, Han Solo has just rescued me, how cool is that.”
After rescuing Clawson from the mountaintop, Ford flew him to a makeshift search and rescue headquarters. On the ground, Ford remarked to the young man: “Boy, you sure must have earned a merit badge for this one,” to which Clawson replied that he had already received one last summer — much to the amusement of the actor.
In the end, Ford’s rescue of Cody Clawson was heroic in more ways than one. According to Teton County Sheriff Bob Zimmer, Ford also saved the department $1,000 an hour, the cost of hiring a private pilot. In an interview after Clawson’s rescue, Ford told the press that he was happy to help.
“I’m gonna fly anyway so I might as well fly search and rescue and help people,” he stated, according to the Daily Mail.
And while Clawson was embarrassed about the incident, his fellow Boy Scouts and friends back home were in awe of his experience.
“The kids asked if I got an autograph but I told them, ‘No, but I got a hug and a handshake, and that’s better,” Clawson said.
Where Is Cody Clawson Today?
After the incident, Cody Clawson went on to live a normal life.
He married his wife, Kelsi, and had a son, Kael. The family now lives in Ogden, Utah. There, Clawson works for a medical company making filters for dialysis machines.
Michelle Fieschel Clawson, his wife, and their son, Kael.
Periodically, Clawson gives interviews about the incident, and he still expresses his overwhelming gratitude toward Harrison Ford.
“He had always been somebody I looked up to and appreciated. And what he did gave me a different perspective on stars. They sometimes get portrayed as snobby people, but there really are good, generous people out there. And to me Harrison Ford is one of those good people who we’re lucky to have as an influence on our lives,” Clawson stated to the Daily Mail.
Clawson’s story resurfaced in 2015, after engine failure led to Ford crashing his World War II-era plane on a golf course in Los Angeles. The crash had left him with moderate injuries, including a broken arm and head trauma.
Upon hearing the news, Clawson stated “‘This guy saved my life, the first thing I thought was ‘is he alright? I appreciated what he did for me all those years ago, and I just hope he gets better and can help other people in the future. He’s a genuine hero, not just in the films, he’s a great man.”
After reading about Cody Clawson, dive into the story of David Hahn, the “Nuclear Boy Scout.” Then, read about Dennis Martin, the six-year-old whose disappearance in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park led to the largest search effort in the park’s history.
