A 2-year-old toddler who wandered away from her home in Michigan on Wednesday was found safe and sound thanks to two family dogs, according to multiple reports.
“She laid down and used one of the dogs as a pillow, and the other dog laid right next to her and kept her safe,” Lt. Mark Giannunzio said Thursday, per ABC News. “It’s a really remarkable story.”
“So, I realized she was missing and I’m telling her uncle, and I said, ‘Where is she?’”, the child’s mother, Brooke Chase, told the outlet during a video interview. “We’re searching all around the yard, up and down the roads, screaming at the top of our lungs her name, calling for the dogs because the dogs were missing, too,” she added.
“We’re [searching] everywhere around here,” she continued. “It’s completely wooded — deep, thick woods around here. There’s a swamp over there, so of course we’re, like, freaking out. And after about fifteen minutes of searching for her with our friends and family, I called the cops.”
Thea went on to tell the outlet that authorities had used drones and dogs in the search for her daughter.
“I was in such a fog and in such a shock that she was literally gone, in a split second,” she added.
A Michigan State Police public information officer tells PEOPLE that the the smaller dog she was using as a pillow was a cocker spaniel, while the bigger dog, a rottweiler, was in “guardian mode.”
A Michigan State Police cruiser (police car) parked in front of the capitol building in downtown Lansing, the capital of the state of Michigan.Getty Images
Getty Images
Back in May, an8-year-old Wisconsin boywent missing for two days during a family camping trip in Michigan before authorities located him in Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.
On Monday, May 8, Michigan State Police’s Eighth District wrote onTwitter(now known as X) that authorities had discovered second-grader Nante Niemi underneath a log where he had sought warmth and shelter.
According toan Michigan State Police (MSP) news release, Nante was believed to have been gathering firewood on Saturday, May 6, when he got lost in the woods.
His mother, Jessica Buerger, said her son was on his family’s boys' trip at the time, per local news outletWDIO.
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Later that day, MSP Eighth District posted on X that the boy had been found.
“Nante has been located safe and has been reunited with his family! A volunteer searching found him under/near a log, where’d he been the entire time, about two miles from the campsite. He appears to be in good health!,“the post read.
A rescuer, Eli Talsma, toldABC Newsthat when they found Nante on Monday afternoon, he seemed “perfectly fine.”
“I mean, he was just normal,” Talsma said. “Nante was just walking around. He was talking. He was asking questions. He said he wasn’t hungry. He was perfectly fine, but we did give him a Clif Bar and a banana and some water.”
Nante’s family and friends were left with nothing but gratitude, including his elementary school principal, Steve Lombardo.
“We announced it to the entire school, and as my colleague said, it was like being at a big football game with our winning touchdown being scored,” Lombardo told ABC News. “The entire school lit up in cheers, and everybody was just relieved and thankful.”
source: people.com
