Wandering 5yo reunited with mother
Published: February 21, 2006
A five-year-old girl found wandering the streets of Toronto’s east end was rescued by a quick-thinking parking enforcement officer early Monday morning and returned to her mother in the afternoon.
Lidia Lungu went to bed in the same room Sunday night as her mother and sister. But she was gone when her mother woke up.
“I woke up and I saw that my daughter was not beside me anymore,” Claudia Lungu told CTV Toronto’s Desmond Brown. “Of course I was shocked.”
Lidia was spotted walking in the frigid weather along Cosburn Avenue near Donlands Avenue by Officer Muhammed Khwaja around 3:45 a.m. Monday morning.
“I observed a little girl walking on a sidewalk alone without her parents,” Khwaja told reporters on Monday. “I asked her where her parents were. She had no idea.”
Lidia, who lives on the sixth floor of an apartment building, told Khwaja she ran out of her building after having a nightmare.
“She told me she lives in a land far, far away,” Kwaja said.
Khwaja said she was wearing white shirt, and a pink dress and boots when he found her. He said she didn’t seem cold or distressed despite the fact the wind chill at the time made the temperature feel like -17 C.
“She talked to me about how she likes candy and she just likes walking. She said she wasn’t cold and doesn’t get cold,” 26-year-old Khwaja said. “She was really chatty.”
Khwaja, who didn’t know how long she’d been outside, put Lidia in his car and turned on the heat. He then called police after she couldn’t tell him where she lived.
Lidia’s mother called Khwaja her daughter’s guardian angel.
“I feel really good that I tried to save her life, and anyone would have done the same thing,” Khwaja said. “I feel lucky for her.”
Her mother believes she may have been looking for her father who went to work in Costa Rica a month ago.
“Her father had to leave Canada and she misses him,” Lungu said. “(For) a month, she’s (been) difficult.”
Lungu called the police after a neighbour told her about media reports of a wandering child.
“Her mom was very, very upset and frightened that her daughter was missing and she didn’t know it at the time,” Toronto Police Staff Sgt. Stan Ellis said.
The girl also ran away from her kindergarten class last Friday, her mother said.
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