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Porter Stone, above, was located early Wednesday near Alsip, Illinois, police told KDSK.

Updated at 5:51 a.m. ET: A boy who was allegedly kidnapped from a St. Louis hospital while awaiting a heart transplant was located near Chicago early Wednesday, NBC News reported. His father and grandmother were taken into custody.

According to KSDK, the Illinois State Police found 5-year-old Porter Stone, his father Jeffrey Stone and grandmother Rhonda Marie Mathews in Alsip, Illinois. Felony warrants were issued for kidnapping, interfering with custody and endangering the welfare of a child.

KSDK reported that Porter Stone appeared to be fine but was being taken to a hospital for an evaluation.

Officials said the child had vanished after being discharged from St. Louis Children's Hospital on Tuesday. Porter Stone's parents reportedly have been involved in a custody dispute.

Porter Stone was reported missing from St. Louis Children's Hospital at 4:20 p.m. local time (5:20 p.m. ET) after his father called the boy's mother to tell her "he was taking his son," said officer Sherri Bruns of the St. Louis Police Department.

"After the discharge, the father took the child to the pharmacy and the mother went to get the car. The mother then reported that the father never came to the car," Dr. Sessions Cole of St. Louis Children's Hospital told KSDK.

Local TV station KSDK reported that the boy's mother has legal custody of the boy, according to relatives.

"I believe it's to try and hurt my sister, to try and take control of the situation since he has no custody of the children," Ian Fife, the boy's maternal uncle, told KSDK.

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Jeffrey Stone, above, has been taken into custody.

'Next on the list'
The boy was carrying a backpack with a medical intravenous pump and medication that will last 48 hours, Bruns said. He was at the hospital awaiting a transplant, she said, adding, "He is next on the list."

Doctors say Porter's condition, which KSDK reported was cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease, will worsen without proper care and a supply of medication. The station said the boy's intravenous pump would only last 24 hours.

NBC Bay Area, msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Updated at 8:23 p.m. ET: Former Vice President Dick Cheney was recovering Saturday at a Virginia hospital after receiving a heart transplant, his office said.

Cheney was in the Intensive Care Unit of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, his office said.

Cheney, 71, who served as vice president in the George W. Bush administration, has had a long history of heart trouble and has been on the cardiac transplant list for more than 20 months.

"Although the former Vice President and his family do not know the identity of the donor, they will be forever grateful for this lifesaving gift," aide Kara Ahern said in a written statement that was authenticated by several close associates of the former vice president.

More than 3,100 Americans currently are on the national waiting list for a heart transplant. Just over 2,300 heart transplants were performed last year, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. And 330 people died while waiting.

According to UNOS, 332 people over age 65 received a heart transplant last year. The majority of transplants occur in 50- to 64-year-olds.

The odds of survival are good. More than 70 percent of heart transplant recipients live at least five years, although survival is a bit lower for people over age 65.

Cheney suffered a heart attack in 2010, his fifth since the age of 37. That year, he had surgery to have a small pump installed to help his heart keep working. It was one of the few steps left, short of a transplant, to stay alive in the face of what he acknowledged was "increasing congestive heart failure."

The pump, called a left ventricular assist device, is mainly used for short periods to buy time for potential transplant candidates awaiting a donor organ. The fact that doctors resorted to it illustrated the perilous condition he was in.

Slideshow: The private and public lives of Dick Cheney

Hb / AP

The former vice president and conservative leader's life in photos — from Wyoming to Washington.

Launch slideshow

"I've gotten used to the various contraptions that are always with me, and I'm working and traveling, I've hunted a time or two, and I have some fishing planned," Cheney wrote in his memoir released last year.

In July 2007, he had had a minor surgical procedure to replace a device that monitored his heartbeat. Nearly 20 years earlier, in 1988, Cheney had had quadruple bypass surgery, and had two artery-clearing angioplasties and the operation to implant the device.

In 2005, Cheney had six hours of surgery on his legs to repair a kind of aneurysm, and in March 2007, doctors discovered deep venous thrombosis in his left lower leg. An ultrasound a month later showed the clot was getting smaller.

In January 2011, Cheney said he was getting by on a battery-powered heart pump, which made it "awkward to walk around." He also said he hasn't made a decision yet on a transplant, but that "the technology is getting better and better."

Cheney said then that he'd "have to make a decision at some point whether I want to go for a transplant."

Like 5 million other Americans, Cheney had congestive heart failure, meaning his heart had become too weakened to pump properly. That can happen for a variety of reasons, but Cheney's was due to cumulative damage from five heart attacks that he had suffered since age 37.

Heart failure kills 57,000 Americans a year and contributes to many more deaths.

Cheney served as Bush's vice president for eight years, from 2001 until 2009. Cheney was a lightning rod for criticism during Bush's presidency, accused by opponents of often advocating a belligerent U.S. stance in world affairs during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NBC News' Jamie Gangel, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.