'Tough' toddler found alive after 2 days in woods

[Changenow]

Source: AP

The boy was wet and only wearing a T-shirt and one tennis shoe. Halpin called 911, then wrapped the child in his shirt, scooped him up and carried him about a half-mile to a house.

"He hung on to me pretty tight," said Halpin, who didn't have any water for the child but gave him some candy. "Outside of a few scratches, he was in really good shape."

Joshua had slipped out of his family's mobile home near Arcadia in rural southeast Missouri around 11:30 a.m. Monday, while his father slept and his mother talked on the phone.

Terry Schulte, the boy's grandmother, told KSDK-TV that Joshua told her he was on his way to visit her. She lives about five miles from his home, and he was found covered in ticks about a half-mile away. Somewhere along the way he lost his pull-up diaper and one of his sneakers, which searchers found near a pond Monday.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090507/ap_on_re_us/us_missouri_child_found

[predfan]

1. Sometimes miraculous things happen, in spite of us.

[undeterred]

2. Wow.

Lucky kid, lucky family.

[Maine-ah]

3. I have a 2 y.o. daughter

toddlers are quick and you have to keep an eye on them every moment. Hell, when I go to cellar to laundry I put her in her high chair for 2 minutes just to be sure she doesn't get into any trouble.

[EFerrari]

9. They're REALLY quick. My brother got out a couple of times

by finding the only unlocked door which I'd used to go out and to school! And he was QUIET about it which meant there was no noise to attend to when my mom thought he was in the livingroom watching cartoons and playing with his toys.

One of my own kids started walking at seven months and I'm pretty sure that took about 10 years off of my life. :)

[Mz Pip]

13. My son got out of

our locked house when he was 18 months old. He fiddled with the lock and got it open and ran off down the street. There were three adults in the house at the time and no one was asleep. Fortunately a woman at the end of the block saw him running down the street and grabbed him. By this time we'd discovered he'd gotten out and we were frantically searching.

I think I did lose about 10 years out of my life in those 10 minutes.

But he got through childhood with just a minor broken wrist and is now 32 years old. I still remember those 10 minutes as some of the scariest in my life.

Glad this story had a happy ending.

[EFerrari]

14. I've relaxed a little, too, that my kids are in their early 30s. Finallly!

:rofl:

[Abacus]

17. "which meant there was no noise to attend to"

That's usually how I know my two-year-old is getting into trouble. :rofl:

I'm glad this boy is safe, I couldn't stop worrying about him.

[EFerrari]

19. That's true! But, you have to keep remembering to listen for nothing!

:rofl:

[VaYallaDawg]

27. My mother could hear nothing better than anybody in the world.

[NoodleyAppendage]

4. Adam Childers, the boy's father, is a jerk off.

Rather than being contrite about how it could be that he and his wife would let their three year old wander away at night, the whole AP article is replete with Childers "chest thumping" about how tough his kid was through the ordeal. You get the sense of what the father really values...machismo.

J

[joeybee12]

5. Yeah, child protective services needs to make a visit...

...he was sleeping and she was talking on the phone...loonies.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. The story I read said the father was at work and worked second-shift.

[joeybee12]

8. Well, he's got a right to sleep...but someone needed to be looking after that

kid...at that age they try to go and do everything...it's a full-time job.

[lumpy]

6. It was 11:30 in the morning when the child left the house.

Parents should know where the children are at all times, at that age especially. I would hope that they have learned a hard lesson.

[Kali]

10. wow - you sure got a lot more out of that than me

got kids? some of them can move pretty fast

oh and I read it was AM, not night.

[BoneDaddy]

12. right there with you

I can't stand some of these sanctimonious bastards in this thread.

[NoodleyAppendage]

21. I have two toddlers...jerk off.

If my kid were missing for 5 minutes, I'd know. You listen for the "silence" when they are that young. The parents were being negligent. Pure and simple.

J

[BoneDaddy]

22. How the fuck do you know that?

You act as if you were a fly on the wall. You MAY be right but there is a strong chance you MAY be wrong.

My point is that you have already reached a conclusion about a situation of which you do not know the details and you come off like a sanctimonious know it all, who has never, god forbid, made a mistake.

[NoodleyAppendage]

23. Mom talking on the phone? Toddler leaves trailer long enough to wander away. HELLO?

Do you have any kids?

J

[BoneDaddy]

36. I have two

and one just happened to do that while I was at work and my wife was struggling with a our second child my 5 month old. My 3 year old at the time snuck out the back door and hid in the sandbox cause he wanted to play a game on mommy. He never did anything like that before.

My wife calls me frantic cause my son is missing and I tell her to call the police. I drive about 110 miles and hour home after leaving work in a stark panic, it takes me 15 minutes to do the normal 22 minutes. I fly through the yellow light and attract the attention of the police officer who (unbeknownst to me has just left my house) now chases me back home. I get out and explain my situation and he comforts me by saying they found my son hiding in the sandbox.

Mind you the sandbox has a lid and he stayed under there cause my wife was so frantic, he got scared. We would never think of looking under there because it was shut.

Regardless I cried like a baby once I found out he was ok.

Bottom line is that sometimes things happen, that regardless of your best intentions, they do. They do not mean horrible neglectful parents as you suggest and that is pretty much what I was responding to. When I read this I was immediately transported into that moment when I though I lost my son and I felt so much pain for the parents. You read this and come away with judging them for their inadequacies even though none of us know the full story.

[Chulanowa]

26. Oh bull

I "escaped" numerous times when I was a toddler. My mother was in no way negligent. The thing is, people have a lot of things to attend to in their lives. Sure she could have kept her absolute full attention on me 24 / 7... but we wouldn't have eaten, the hosue would have been a sty, all my clothes would have been filthy, and I'm pretty sure that even my mother had to use the bathroom and shower sometimes.

I'm very happy that you are a perfect person, and have a high-tech alarm system to let you know if your toddlers have squeezed themselves out of the mail slot or whatever, but honestly, most people can't live up to your standards of omniscience.

[NoodleyAppendage]

29. The equation is simple. Don't pay attention to your kids = Risk of accident or death.

What do you people not get???

J

[Chulanowa]

35. And what you're missing is that sometimes people have to take a shit

What, do you bring your kids in with you? Or are you one of those parents that keep their kids on a literal leash?

There's a HUGE leap between "my kid snuck out" and "negligence", Noodle. Nobody is capable of eternal, flawless vigilance, and when you go around calling these parents negligent, you're just making an ass out of yourself

[BoneDaddy]

37. YOu sound mentally ill

and way over identified with your role. I bet you judge everyone by your "ultimately high" standard. Sad.

Being a helicopter parent who is in control of every one of their child's moves will reap a different sow. Be ready.

[ima_sinnic]

32. well aren't you the perfect person.

you and Bill Frist should get together. He can diagnose people in long-term comas from a distance, and you can sanctimoniously pass judgment on complete strangers on the basis of a few words in a news article.

[Kali]

33. The point is they can be long gone in that 5 minutes (or much less, actually)

good luck with your kids, I bet before long you will have a little better understanding of the point. I'd even bet money on it. Like I said - they are fast.:hi:

[ima_sinnic]

30. 11:30 a.m. is not "at night." (nt)

[Blue_Tires]

34. now he's gonna act like he was following some ancient (Hollywood) Spartan tradition

by leaving his kid out in the wilderness...

[BoneDaddy]

11. Wow, what judgements from people on here

Children can slip away from you in an eye blink. While I was at work and my wife was dealing with my 6mos old, my three year old snuck out of the house and hid in his sandbox that had a cover on it.

Before you throw stones, realize this is a common occurance that can happen to ANYONE.

[AnneD]

25. Thank you....

I deal with kids every day. I am a school Nurse in an elementary school. Toddlers are the worst to get into a jam in an instant. I'll give you a true story. My little nephew was an incredibly sweet but mischievous child. One time-my sister came in to the kitchen only to find him sitting on top of the fridge (opened the drawers and scaled up the fridge) among other thing. A few later, I was visiting Sis and she was bragging how she totally child proofed her kitchen. The words were no sooner out of her mouth when a blood curdling scream came out of the kitchen. Seems Mikie had found the only thing in the house that he could cut himself on. He had reached under her bathroom scales and had cut his finger on that space between the scale and the stand.:eyes:

[BoneDaddy]

38. Yeah some of the people on here are really crazy

if you think you can monitor a child every second.  Either they do not have children, have never worked with them or are so arogant in their extreme form of parent control they cannot see the problem with that attitude 

[applegrove]

15. I like the good news stories. We don't get enough of them on the news I think.

[Hugin]

16. "He had good spunk."

:D

[Jennicut]

18. The thing with little ones is, if its quiet its not good. I have a 3 and 4 year old

and check on them constantly. When I have to go down to my basement to do laundry they come or I make sure the doors to the outside are locked. They can get away fast. Thankfully this little boy is okay.

[Bill McBlueState]

20. the dad says

"I mean, you doubt if God's actually with you for awhile, and then something like this happens, and you know he's there."

If God saved the kid, I wonder what God was busy with for two days before he got around to it?

[NoodleyAppendage]

24. God was "toying" with the kid. Deciding if he should kill him or not. That's the logic, right? n/

J

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

31. Probably why he neglected the one who was thrown from the car. -nt

[BoneDaddy]

39. He almost lost his kid

I am not saying that this dad does not have some faults, he obviously does. He knows only his belief system and tries to reconcile the current events in that belief system. Should he be an object of derision? I guess if you want to do that, but under the circumstances, I can give him a bit of wiggle room.

[shanti]

28. poor lil guy

he was probably so scared...:( i'm so glad he was found!

[gate of the sun]

40. I remember when my brother was 2

and he had wandered away to the store and a week later I heard the garage door open I suspect at about 7 am and I caught him trying to run off while my parents were asleep. I was 8. I think the judgments passed by some on this site are way to extreme. Sometimes stuff happens once when my older children were little I was at a mall I had 4 kids and suddenly I realized the youngest was missing. I was with 4 adults and 4 children and we all frantically looked for my son.........we found him 30 minutes later back at a book store looking at books. Does this make me a bad parent? maybe child protective services should have taken all my children away at that point. Maybe I needed a reality check? Good parents sometimes don't realize there kid has wandered off. I really think the biggest point here is sometimes parents do need showers and the bathroom and sometimes children walk away......that doesn't mean the parents are bad and someone on here needs to get a handle on reality.