[font face="Verdana,Sans-serif"][font color="black" size="2"][span id="article"][span id="intelliTXT"]ANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - An immigrant family left a 23-month-old boy in the Vancouver airport and learned he was missing only when contacted during the next leg of the trip.[/p] Jun Parreno, the boy's father, told The Vancouver Sun the mix-up occurred Monday as he, his wife and two grandparents of the child, J.M., were scrambling between their arrival in Canada and a connecting flight to Winnipeg on Air Canada.[/p] Running late after having to unpack and repack all their luggage, "we had 10 minutes before boarding," said Parreno, who was emigrating with his family from the Philippines. "We were running for the gate."[/p] He said he thought his son was with the three other adults, who were running to the gate ahead of him, and they thought the little boy was with him.[/p] Instead, in a scenario similar to the movie "Home Alone," the toddler was wandering alone between a security checkpoint and the flight gates, said Angela Mah, an Air Canada representative.[/p] "We were called by (security) who told us one of the security people had a toddler in tow," Mah said. "He doesn't speak English, so we found a Tagalog-speaking agent who has been looking after him."[/p] There was no boarding pass for the youngster because he did not have a separately assigned seat, so there was no indication in the airline's computer system that someone had missed a flight, nor had there been any panicked calls from anyone on a flight missing a child, Mah said.[/p] That's because the family was scattered in different parts of the plane to Winnipeg and still didn't know the child had been left.[/p] Air Canada staff began checking flights that had left, and "we eventually determined who his parents might be ... and the flight crew talked to them," Mah said. "They didn't realize until then that the baby had been left behind.[/p] "We're not aware of this ever happening on an Air Canada flight before."[/p] The parents were put into telephone contact with the little boy, and Parreno was put on another Air Canada plane to return to Vancouver to get him after the family's flight arrived in Winnipeg with the airline covering the cost of the two additional flights, she said. [/p] Full Story: [a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080514/D90LDTDO0.html"]http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080514/D90LDTDO0.html[/a] [/p] [/span][/span][/font][/font]
When the words "Get Lost" get yelled at me, I used to just cry. (when I was a kid) ... because I have been lost a couple of times. It's not fun when you can't find any known faces and you're in the middle of nowhere. Those were some MEAN people who yelled at me like that. Big bullies!
What a horrible experience, P.C. But..not everyone can say that their child ran away to join the Hare Krishna!!!!
It's a panicky feeling when you're looking for someone, especially in a crowd. There have been times when I haven't been lost per se, just separated from the rest of my group (at the PNE for example) and I start sweating and hyperventilating.
Heckyl took off running with another kid once- during a fancy wedding reception on Newcastle Island. The two boys were about 3yrs old and went running through the woods with streamers and balloons.... blissfully unaware that they were "lost" (they knew where they were!) or that anyone was looking for them. *shivers*
I remember when my oldest was a wee toddler and managed to disappear in the Woolworths on Granville Street during one of those...'I only turned my back for a second' moments. I frantically went up and down every isle yelling for her like a lunatic, all the time being reassured by the people helping me look, that at least she couldn't have made it outside, as the door is very heavy.
Well after wasting valuable minutes looking IN the store, we decided she HAD to have made her escape. Now I'm in full panic mode. I look up the block and down the block deciding rapidly which way to look first. A large circle of people were up near the corner...so I head that way first. I made my way through the small mob (and even in my panicked state...thought it was odd that the Hare Krishnas had attracted this kind of attention)......
THERE in the center of the attention was my wee one, DANCING UP A STORM to the rhythmic chant of the Krishna mantra. Her 15 minutes of fame came to an abrupt end, and the crowd dispersed. I never wanted to ever feel that level of panic ever again. I contemplated a leash.