I had to abandon my various plans today to go help search for a toddler who went missing locally yesterday morning. It was only 25 minutes drive so it would kind have been rude not to go and help out!
The 2.5 year old apparently got out of bed at around 5 a.m. when his mother and sister were asleep and his dad was tending the animals.
And he wandered clear off their farm and out and away. with the Dog.
It wasn't until a while later they realised he'd gone missing - it must have been quite some time because apparently the father was out, got a text message and drove his car into a ditch in a rush to get back.
Anyway, I came a bit late to the search party - due to a few mixed messages from the GNR about not wanting more people because of confusing the scent for the dogs and so on, but I at least managed to get some searching in.... by the time I turned up they were already working more than 2 KM from the house, and it was a matter of forming lines and just checking under everything.
NB this was the pin drop for where the search was being organised from.....
Right in the middle of nowhere and right by a river, it's not a great confidence inspirer...
It was all very slow going, with not very much organisation from the authorities, eventually 'the people' just took it unto themselves to search on their own, through fields, brash, some really quite thick, various abandoned buildings, wells (I know!), and generally this kind of landscape:
It was all looking a bit bleak, with the Dog having returned (without the kid), his clothes having been found, and areas getting searched 2-3 times over by different search parties, one 'final push' line of about 100 people, and then, after 36 hours of him having gone missing (!) the kid just wandered along the road and into the local petrol station.
Lord knows how he managed to avoid over 100 people searching for him for a day and a half!
Anyway, the local Facebook group is a pretty happy place right now, and thank God it all ended with a result!
I stopped short of dropping in a comment about how he might like a GPS tracker for his third birthday, you never know how these things are gonna go down on Facebook, best to just leave everyone to their celebrations!