Driver finds missing 6-year-old girl who is blind wandering on road, New York cops say

A driver came across a missing 6-year-old girl, who is legally blind, wandering on the shoulder of a road at night in New York, state police say.

This comes after parents called 911 to report their daughter, who is also hearing impaired, had disappeared from their home around 10 p.m. Nov. 14 in Oswego County, which is located in northwestern New York, according to a Nov. 15 state police news release.

After authorities launched a search, the driver spotted the child more than a mile away from her house around midnight, police say. Then she called 911, state police spokesman Trooper Jack Keller told McClatchy News in a statement.

It turns out that the driver is the girl’s neighbor, Keller said.

When asked how the child went missing, Keller told McClatchy News in a statement that “she basically just walked out of the home.”

Ultimately, police and an ambulance arrived on the scene, according to authorities. The girl was assessed by first responders who found she was “in good health with no injuries.”

Oswego County borders Lake Ontario and is about 35 miles north of Syracuse.

This story was originally published November 15, 2022 at 12:47 PM with the headline "Driver finds missing 6-year-old girl who is blind wandering on road, New York cops say."

Julia Marnin

McClatchy DC

Julia Marnin covers courts for McClatchy News, writing about criminal and civil affairs, including cases involving policing, corrections, civil liberties, fraud, and abuses of power. As a reporter on McClatchy’s National Real-Time Team, she’s also covered the COVID-19 pandemic and a variety of other topics since joining in 2021, following a fellowship with Newsweek. Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, she was raised in South Jersey and is now based in New York State.