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Five-year-old Jocelyn Lewis was found almost 24 hours after she went missing, hungry and a bit scratched but "chatty" and eager to tell paramedics about her adventures.
The young girl had run away from her Nielsens Road home at Carrara on the Gold Coast just after 4.30pm on Sunday and was last seen an hour later a few streets away at Alison Road.
What followed was an around-the-clock search involving hundreds, including SES personnel from as far away as Moreton Bay, a number of police specialty units, helicopters, the Gold Coast Suns AFL team, concerned community members, horses, motorbikes and a pony.
Police had issued an Amber Alert for the young blonde-haired girl who has a medical condition on Sunday night, rallying the local community to get together and find the "beautiful, well-natured" five-year-old.
A police command centre was established on Nielsens Road at the 7-Eleven to co-ordinate volunteers eager to help.
It wasn't until almost 24 hours later that she was found with a few cuts to her hands and feet, dehydrated and hungry but in "high" spirits and "quite chatty", QAS Gold Coast acting senior operations supervisor Justin Payne said.
"She was joking with paramedics and telling them all about her adventure," he said.
Jocelyn Lewis was found in long grass beside the M1 near Worongary by two women who simply joined the search as part of a "spontaneous army" of Gold Coast residents.
Kylie Maudsley and Bree Johnson were strangers before the search, but came up lucky when Jocelyn answered their calls as they searched at just before 3pm.
"Kylie just decided to call out 'Jocelyn' and she just popped up out of the grass and said 'Hi, come and get me', " Bree Johnson told Seven News.
Kylie Maudsley said hearing Jossie's voice was "amazing".
"It was unexpected, she just popped up out of nowhere," Ms Maudsley said.
"It was an amazing moment, I just didn't expect it at all."
Bree Johnson, the daughter-in-law of V8 supercar veteran Dick Johnson, said the two women had been searching on the other side of the M1, but decided to switch.
"We thought we would come back to the SES point and just have one last look," Ms Johnson said.
"And we literally had just arrived. It was the first time we had called her name and she just stood up."
News of Jocelyn's discovery prompted cheers from a crowd of locals at the police command centre where hundreds had registered to help in the search.
Her father Steve, tightly hugging his only daughter, thanked the community and the 160 SES volunteers and police for banding together and helping to find his child.
"I was getting very concerned it was going to go the other way," he said.
"Even though I am buggered that is why I came out here, to thank the community for everything they have done, that is how she found. Just goes to show when you rally together, how well we can do.
"I am going to clean her up and give her a good meal, all of us, we haven't eaten."
Her aunty Jenny Willnot had told media earlier that day that her niece loved to play hide-and-seek and urged anyone who found her to not approach her but to "keep an eye on her" and call police immediately.
"She is a beautiful, well-natured girl, she is very active but Jocelyn's favourite game is hide-and-seek," Ms Willnot said.
Inspector Scott McQueen said she was a "resilient" girl and was in remarkable condition considering her ordeal.
"As you would imagine, the parents were distraught ... but they were very relieved once we told them that young Jocelyn had been found," he said.
"It was an anxious 20-minute wait while we were bringing her back for that reunion."
