A parent's worst fear

[southcarolinamom]

:grouphug: My daughter did the same thing at Walmart when she was 5. She wanted to stand in the middle of a clothes rack and see what it felt like to be covered up in clothes. Sigh. It really is the longest 10 minutes of your life.

 

I'm glad you had a good outcome!

[bnrmom]

Ugh, it's the worst feeling. My younger son is a wanderer. He just silently vanishes, and ends up in an area completely opposite from where you would expect him. The worst was when we were at a big playground area in the downtown of a big city. He was 5. There were a ton of kids all over, and I was sitting with an eagle eye on him. My friend asked me a question, I looked over at her, and when I looked back he was gone. I got up and started looking everywhere. Could not find him. Had his brother and my friend looking for him. I was in a panic. I somehow became convinced he had been taken into one of the public bathrooms and starting banging on all the doors (which were all locked and occupied) screaming his name. This was a big area and I was running back and forth. I was about 5 seconds from calling the police when he came walking out from underneath a structure, which I'd already checked, as cool as could be.

[Chelli]

I lost my oldest in the Denver International Airport when she was 2 for about 10 minutes.

 

I understand exactly what you are saying. After about 5 minutes of not finding her and having no idea where she had gone, I started thinking about never seeing her again and having to call my parents and dh's parents and telling them that their only grandchild was gone.

 

My adrenaline still races and my heart starts thumping thinking about that moment even 6 years later. It's awful!

 

All of my children have had near death/make mom's heart stop moments (deer crashing into our car and choking for the other two). I told them that they couldn't do it again because I can't handle it.

 

Glad it all turned out well for you! :grouphug:

Edited April 10, 2012 by pw23kids

[AnneBlessedx4]

Apparently, my dh did this often as a child. While living in Alaska, he disappeared at the mall more than once. There was a McDonald's that they took lost children to while they looked for their parents. He decided the liked it!

 

My kids have all disappeared at one time or another. My oldest climbed on the back of the couch and undid the locks while I was in the bathroom. He was 2. We lived right next to a busy road. I found him in the neighbors garden, digging in the dirt. My next son was even worse. When we just had the oldest three, if we split up in a store, one of us took ds1 and dd, the other took ds2. He was more work than both of them!

[Catwoman]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

I'm so glad to hear everything turned out OK, but that feeling of utter terror and helplessness is absolutely indescribable. Don't be surprised if you find yourself thinking about it -- a lot -- for a while. :grouphug:

[Pretty in Pink]

Oh, gosh. I almost cried just reading your story! :grouphug::grouphug:

 

My husband's grandmother once lost our toddler at a crowded outdoor swimming pool. Those were the longest minutes of my life, looking for my little boy. <shudders>

[Tammyla]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

Some kids do that:001_huh:.

[Dustybug]

Oh my word! I would have been in an absolute panic! :grouphug: I'm so glad he was safe!

[MamaT]

That is a terrible, awful feeling. My second son hid from my parents behind our heavy living room drapes when he was about 3. My dh was at work, and I was in class. I was attending college at the time, and it was before cell phones. My dad had just had surgery, and my son watched him walking up and down the road in front of our house calling for him - on his crutches. When he heard my mom call the police, and his dad to come home from work, he came out. My mother was still a mess when I got there.

[TheReader]

Our kids really do not understand what they do to us parents, do they? Not until they grow up and have their own kids.

 

 

DH came home with two bags of Dove chocolate, a bottle of rum, and a bottle of coke. He wasted no time in making me a drink, and then he cooked dinner.

 

 

When people say that being a parent is the hardest job in the world......that is the biggest understatement in the world.

 

What a great guy! Glad he understood and knew just what you'd need for full recovery.

[justamouse]

:grouphug:

[Remudamom]

We lost a little one in Silver Dollar City once. I panicked, but my mother turned on her heel and went back to the last place we had stopped. Doll store, and there stood my youngest girl looking at the dolls. Thank God for my mother.

[dirty ethel rackham]

I know that terrible feeling. I lost dd when she was about 2 at our local swimming facility, which is a converted quarry. It was crowded that day. She was playing in the sand near the water. I was at the water's edge watching the kids in the sand. My friend was watching the water to make sure we saw if any kids went into the water. Dd had waded into the water a couple times to wash sand off of her hands. Her son interrupted us. We both looked down at something he showed us. When we looked up, dd was gone. I was terrified that she waded too far into the water and had gone under. I was screaming asking people to look for a toddler in a pink polka dot suit. I had visions of them clearing the water and finding her hours later. About 10 moms were looking helping me look for her. I had sickening visions of her underwater. After about 5 panic-stricken minutes, someone alerted me that there was a "lost child" at the guard station. She had looked "lost" so a guard picked her up and they were about to announce it on the PA system when I noticed. I ran so fast to get her, swooped her up, sat down and rocked her while I sobbed.

[Hoggirl]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

 

So, so, glad you found him, and he was okay. I am so sorry you had to go through that. More :grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[KidsHappen]

That happened to me with my son at a street mall in Japan. He was strapped into a stroller that was blocked against a wall between my hubby and me. We were looking at some items and when we were ready to move on I noticed my son was gone. Neither of us felt him get out of the stroller and it had not been moved at all. The mall was surrounded on three sides by extemely busy streets and my son was quite admired by the Japanese people because of his very blond hair. He was missing for at least half an hour. I ran to the base to alert the MPs and they sent out people to help look for him. Not a lot of the Japanse people spoke enough English to ask them if they had seen a little blond hair boy who was missing. I was terror stricken until I found him. He had noticed a group of Japanese kids about his age and got out and was wandering around with them. None of them seem to be escorted by anyone either. :confused: These kids were all about three years old.

[Truscifi]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: That is so hard to go through! I'm glad he is safe.

 

I lost ds at an easter egg hunt at a local park when he was that age. We stopped to pet a ferret on a leash, I bent down for just a second, and when I looked up he was gone. It was horrible. Turned out he had left his craft at the last craft station and went back to get it. When I found him he was telling a police officer that his mommy got lost. :001_huh:

[Hilltop]

:grouphug:

[Reeciecup]

My dh did that when he was a little boy. He hid in a stack of tires. When his grandmother finally found him, she spanked him rght there in the store, and then took him to his mother who spanked him again.

[JFSinIL]

My worse few minutes were when, with all four kids at the Field Museum in Chicago, youngest dd disappeared. Not one of us saw her walk off in a different direction - it took mere seconds for her to be GONE. Hubby and I sat the older kids down on a bench and told them DO NOT MOVE! so we could dash off to find her. She would have been about four at the time.

 

Well, long story short, she had somehow lost sight of us and walked all the way back across the main floor of the museum to a display we had been at about 30 minutes earlier. Another mom saw her and her Mom Radar told her it was a lost kid. She took dd to security - when I ran up to the main desk of the museum to ask for help all they had to do was silently point this distraught mom towards another desk - where dd was sitting, impatiently waiting for us to show up!

 

According to her, WE got lost!

[Rhonda in TX]

I lost my daughter in a water park when she was about 10 years old. We were on tubes on the lazy river. It split at one point and she went one way and we went the other. That was terrifying! I got out and watched all the tubes go around. My sister started walking around the park, looking for her. I notified a park employee and they started looking for her. My sister finally came upon DD with an employee. DD had looked for us for awhile before going up to the employee and saying, "I'm lost." I had not allowed myself to think how bad it could be, but I started crying as soon as I saw her. It probably took us 30 minutes to find her from the time we got separated. It was horrible.

 

So glad everything turned out well with your DS!

[moonlight]

Very scary!! :grouphug:

 

Just yesterday, my kids had another boy over for a playdate. My kids have to tell me that they are going outside to play. We even have someone who helps us out and I was going to the store. I asked her where the boys were and she said that they had been going back and forth outside. I got in the car and was going to just let them know that I would be back soon. I drove around our compound and I didn't see them. I was already panicked because my boys know that they need to be able to see and/or hear me calling for them and they aren't rule breakers. We have no rule that they need to tell me when they have come back into the house! Apparently all 3 of them had come back, gone upstairs and were playing quietly. I didn't hear them at all...I don't even know how that is possible, especially when you have a friend over. They were that quiet...crazy!

[jelbe5]

:grouphug:

 

Totally understand what you felt! When my son was younger he wandered out of a friend's back yard while we were visiting and we did not immediatly notice. I called 911 and the police had just picked him up. I had such a sick feeling in my stomach. Happily, it scared him too so he has not wandered since. Glad it worked out okay for you!

[Catherine]

My then 3 yo disappeared while I was waiting in line to pay-it was around Christmas time. I frantically searched the store and finally found him sitting under a decorated tree, playing with the fake presents. I grabbed him and cried and he immediately panicked! I scared him.

[Rebel]

My heart started racing just from READING that. You deserved the chocolate and drink!

 

I don't want to hijack your thread, but it does not necessarily get any better as they get older. My son is 18, almost 19, and this happened to me two weeks ago.

 

I'm in grad school and teach bio labs as part of my stipend. Obviously, my cell phone is set to vibrate while I teach. During a lull in lab while the students were busy working, I pulled it out and saw I had a text from Verizon that the line with parental controls (so ds can have numbers of stalkerish girls blocked) had called 911. My heart stopped beating. I then saw I had also missed a call from ds about 20 minutes prior. I immediately called and texted him and got no reply. I logged into my Verizon account from a lab computer and saw he had called me, his dad, and his step-mom one right after the other and then apparently 911.

 

I tried to call and text him again, then his dad's work and cell, followed by his step-mom. I left messages on all of them. Lab was starting to wind down and by this time, the entire class (24 junior pre-med students) knew what was going on. My supervisor stopped in to see if I needed anything for the next group so I told her what was happening. She said she could cover for me if I needed to leave, but I told her that at that point, I had no idea where to go as I had no idea what had happened or where he was...and then I started to get teary. I had several students offer to pray with me and said they would pray for ds. It's a Christian university (Baylor) and my students are sweet.

 

I started setting up for my next lab and by this time, an hour had passed since the missed call, when my phone rang and it was ds. He had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance and could not use his cell phone until he was settled in a room in ER which is why I could not get in contact with him. Why he was being taken is another story and I have hijacked the thread long enough, so suffice it to say that he had an extremely elevated heart rate, but is own meds and fine now. My supervisor heard me say, "you were taken by ambulance," and "which hospital are you at," and was making get out of here motions with her hands so I took off asap. I am giving serious thought to activating the gps in his phone now...

 

Hug your little one and hopefully you won't have a repeat.

[Mommy22alyns]

:grouphug: How scary. I'm glad everything turned out okay.

[Mommyfaithe]

:grouphug:

I'm happy he was found so quickly. I lost my ds in a store when he was about 3 (he had also decided to hide). It still gives me nightmares.

 

My dd did this @ 3 also...in a Sears. I totally freaked out. We found her with her feet sticking out from under the dress rack...and yes, she was buckled in the stroller from then until she learned to walk next to me....holding onto the stroller....

 

So scary....glad everything turned out ok.....:grouphug:

[bettyandbob]

My niece did this a few times. She purposely hid. My brother and his wife had to have department stores shut down 3 times to look for her. She would hide under clothes and not make a sound. It was very difficult for them to go anywhere. She would try to escape and hide from the time she was 2. She's a really sweet college freshman today, but she put her parents through **** in those early years.

[LittleIzumi]

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:

[woolybear]

I think part of the worst of it is all the scenarios in your head of what might've happened while your child is still missing. I still vividly recall all of the things that I thought might've happened to ds when he was missing seven years ago.

[FO4UR]

:grouphug:

 

So glad he is safe and sound! So sorry for those gray hairs he just created.

[DawnM]

Glad you found him!

 

I lost my 3 year old on Tom Sawyer's Island at Disneyland. He was gone for 20 minutes.....and I was just sure he would fall into the water. It was the longest 20 minutes of my life!

 

A cast member found him and walked him around the island looking for me.

 

I can't imagine having a child really disappear as in days, weeks, years. How could one even function?

[In the Rain]

How absolutely terrifying! Those 10 minutes probably felt like 10 hours! :grouphug:

[Ann@thebeach]

This happened to me when my son was little too. I was adjusting the baby in the carseat and he ran off. I went after him in the same direction but he disappeared.

I have to say the stores are good at the code "Adam"" or whatever it is and everyone was looking. But that does not make a parent feel any calmer.

 

A manager found my son in a rack of clothing as well. He said "I'm camping and going to start a fire in here!" Oh my, I'm sure the manager was glad to see him leave the store! ;)

[Michelle My Bell]

is not knowing where your child is. There is *nothing* in the world that makes everything else become unimportant, and make your heart drop to the ground and breathing becomes difficult.

 

 

I could not find my 3 yr old for ten minutes at Target yesterday. It was the worst ten minutes of my life.

 

All three boys were standing right next me, and I was pulling a box off a shelf. I put the box in the cart and saw he was gone. I asked my 11 and 8 yr old where he was. Response, "I dunno know. He went that way." I wanted to scream, "And you just let him keep walking when you saw him leaving?! What is wrong with you?!!!" I didn't. Instead I ran up and down the main aisle looking down all the side aisles for him. Nothing. My other two boys were still standing there. I sent them to the toy department to look. Then I walked to an employee and told her he was missing. She sent the code out which got every employee looking, and she assured me that no one with a small child would be allowed to leave the store. However, that did NOTHING to reassure me.

 

I couldn't breath. I started to run, and the employee told me I had to stay with her so they would know where I was when they found him. I looked at her (with a crazy glare in my eye I'm sure) and told her that there was no force in the world that would make me just stand there and not continue searching. I took off. I was running up and down aisles. The target lady was running after me. People were staring. I saw employees at every turn talking into their walkie talkies yet no one had found him.

 

A security guard caught up to me, and said that when he had heard from each department and my ds had not been found, he would call the police. I almost vomited.

 

At that moment I heard a woman say,"Your mommy and a lot of people are looking for you." I bolted over. She had found him hidden in a rack of jeans. He had crawled up and covered himself with jeans. She said she happened to notice a pair of jeans move as she walked by.

 

He had a huge smile on his face and he said, "Me hiding, mommy."

 

I have never wanted to hug and shake my child at the same time. I was happy and angry all in one. I wanted to kiss him; I wanted to spank him.

 

Ten minutes had gone by since I alerted the employee. Ten minutes of sheer panic.

 

I have decided that he will be forced to sit strapped in the shopping cart until he is 16. I don't care how much he protests.

 

 

Actually, the Target employees instituted the Code Adam protocol exactly as written. I just got hired at a local store and had to watch a video on it. I was practically crying the whole time while watching it because I know the panic you feel when this happens. What you described is exactly what Mike Walsh said should happen in your situation, from having you wait with the employee as everyone looks for your child to the 10 minutes till they call the police.

[newlifemom]

Happened to me 3 years ago at a campground. Lost my then 3yr old for 10 mins. Took me 2 days to recover. I cannot remember the last time I was that hysterical. Hope you can relax soon. :grouphug:

[NanceXToo]

:grouphug: This post made me tear up. I could just imagine how I would feel if I couldn't find my child, the panic, the awful directions in which my mind would go. So glad everything turned out okay. And that your husband knew just what to do afterward lol.

[Melissa in Australia]

I have never lost a child, but I have found 7, all at different times, all lost and running around frantically calling out for their mother.

[delaney]

I lost DD in the best place possible-Disney. She was lingering in the Mexico pavilion in EPCOT and since there were like 10 of us in the group we didn't notice right away. I think she was 5 at the time. Well by the time we realized it(2 countries over) I almost puked right there. Well needless to say in that 7 or 8 minutes security had already grabbed her and she was happily sitting in the baby care center coloring and watching TV! They are FAST at spotting lost kids and they come out of no where. Same thing happened with my son in Pizza Planet arcade in Hollywood Studios. He was sitting in one of the games and was hard to see unless you stepped into it. We said lost kid and 4 people were there in seconds. Best place in the world to lose a kid I tell ya!

[Mom-ninja.]

Actually, the Target employees instituted the Code Adam protocol exactly as written. I just got hired at a local store and had to watch a video on it. I was practically crying the whole time while watching it because I know the panic you feel when this happens. What you described is exactly what Mike Walsh said should happen in your situation, from having you wait with the employee as everyone looks for your child to the 10 minutes till they call the police.

 

Oh, I logically understand the policy of having mom wait with an employee while all the other employees search. However, the flaw with that policy is that it wouldn't be possible for 10,000 sumo wrestlers to stop me from actively searching for my child. That's why the employee, after seeing the look in my eye, decided it would be easier for her to just follow me around instead of trying to hold me down.

[Michelle O. in MO]

I lost my 13yod two weeks ago. it turned out to be a carpool mix up.....she rode with one family to her swim team practice, but I had made arrangements for her to ride with another. I work at our local YMCA, so these families usually pick her up right out front. The family I had made ride arrangements with showed up and she was no where to be found. I spent 15 minutes looking...then FRANTICALLY looking for her everywhere. I paged her twice. After a few phone calls, I finally found her already at the pool and swimming. Then I sat down and cried. It was the worst 15 minutes I have lived through since she was 3yo and did the same thing your 3yo just did. I don't know if there are adequate words that describe the gripping panic parents feel in these situations ... 3yo or 13yo....they're our babies. :grouphug::grouphug:

[Mama_Rana]

I found a little boy at Walmart. He did not speak English and was crying. They finally found his mother and she seemed completely unrattled. I was furious as she looked so nonchalant about the whole situation.

 

Glad you found your little boy quickly!

 

Elise in NC

I was playing with my kids at the play area at the mall, and this little girl told me she couldn't find her mommy. I don't think English was her first language and she appeared to be blind in one eye. I helped her look around the little play area, and then waited with her for a few minutes planning in my head what I should do. Mom finally showed up very nonchalantly. She was extremely pregnant and had apparently walked down to the food court [not TOO far away, but not in sight] to get a bottle of water. Maybe she told the girl where she was going and she forgot, maybe there was another adult there for the little girl but the girl forgot, I dunno. It was just weird.

 

When DS was almost 2, I left DH asleep and went to take a shower. DS was also asleep. While still in the shower DH came in the bathroom with DS. A woman had just rung the door bell because she had found him in the street! He undid a latch and two locks to get out of the house!

 

We never knew he was missing, but the panic of what could have happened.....plus waoting for DHS to show up at our door - no one ever came....but we thought for sure someone would be followong up on that one.

Yup. We were staying in a vacation rental house, and needed to be out by 11:00 so the cleaning crew could come and get it ready for the next renters so we were frantically running around gathering everything, when this lady rings the doorbell with our toddler. He had apparently chased a ball out into the street. :( I can't describe the swirling hurricane of emotions I felt.

Ironically the same lady came back a few minutes later. Turned out in all the excitement she didn't realize what house she was at: she was the cleaning lady! [she was early, but we just worked around each other, but it was a little awkward]