There’s just never enough of the good news…
I thought this was touching, and amazing, and a testament to the spirit of 5 year olds 
It’s wonderful that she survived, but that poor little girl had to sit next to her mother’s decomposing body for 10 days. She’s going to need therapy, as I can’t imagine what could have been going through her mind all that time. I really hope she gets some help after this. I wonder if she has family members she can live with or if she will be put in foster care. Bless her heart. 
Did anyone else read this and say WTF? They found her while repairing the gaurd rail. Didn’t anyone ever try to find out WHAT WENT THROUGH THE GAURD RAIL? They only noticed her because of her movement. No one would have ever looked for her, but they noticed motion down there. THE WRECKED CAR WASN’T ENOUGH REASON TO INVESTIGATE?
Someone seriously needs to pit the idiot police and DOT workers for this one.
According to the article, she has grandparents and great-grandparents, so hopefully she’ll have plenty of love and support. It really is heartbreaking to think of what she went to… The fact that she sat there for 10 days baffles me though… Just glad she’s (physically) ok.
I don’t cry often anymore, but I honestly just got finished crying over this one. I can’t think of anything worse than to be a little kid and to be held in your mother’s battered arms while she was dying, alone. At least the girl was rescued.
The BBC’s report said the family has “criticized the highway police for not searching for Ruby and her mother.” The family had reported them missing on April 4. The child claims her mother had been alive for a few days after the crash. :mad:
I presume the family didn’t know where they were traveling, or they would have not only told the polics but looked for themselves.
I would hope they searched as well (although family members sound a bit old and perhaps don’t drive.) I know that if I went missing my mom wouldn’t be able to do much more than tell the cops that I left Point A, destined for Point B, but never showed up.
But from the CNN article:
Missing mother and daugther… a report that a car may have gone over the rail… damage to the rail that got documented well enough that a road crew was sent to repair it. Hm.
I’m still in :mad: mode.
:eek:
They didn’t think to see what the hell caused the damage?!
I hope to God that if anyone I know ends up in a situation like this its not in one of those towns where the road department is on a permanent break.
There was a similar case some months ago, a mother and her child crashed their car some meters off a lone road and the child survived several days on cookies or something; very similar case indeed.
On CNN this evening, they said that the Highway Patrol had stopped to investigate-- the officers just couldn’t see the car all the way down in the ravine. I can understand how they missed it, because it seems to have rolled under some scrub trees.
They apparently stopped, looked at the damaged guardrail, looked to see if a car was at the bottom, and not seeing one (or apparently any torn up soil which would indicate a car had rolled) they must have assumed the car that caused it drove away after the accident.
God, that poor kid . . . .
This is the second story I’ve read about a child surviving an accident while their parent died - but in the first one (perhaps a month ago) the parent died right away. I don’t have a cite - I think Ale may have seen the same story.
Sad beyond belief. I can only hope that the child was so young that she won’t retain the memories of watching her mother die. I read this story on Foxnews today and just wanted to go hug my kids - it’s one of those stories that reminds us of the elasticity and strength of a young child’s mentality.
I guess one positive lesson we can learn out of this tragedy is that we should always carry food/water in the car when we’re out with our young children. My prayers and thoughts go out to the family.
According to the link, the autopsy report says she likely died within minutes. Maybe it just felt like days?
And if they followed up “local leads”, wouldn’t they have looked a little more carefully after reports of a car possibly going over the side of the road? They checked it out, they saw that the guardrail had been damaged but they “found nothing”?
Well, I would think that starving to death after watching her mother die would be worse, so thank God there was food in the car. It is terribly sad, but also a little triumphant, because the little girl survived.
My 16-year-old was telling me about this story yesterday, and my 4-year-old was close at hand while she was telling me. I made my oldest daughter shut up about it. . .if there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s my little one obsessing over this kind of thing happening to her.
I think I’ll put some non-perishable food and bottled water in the van.
I think I’ll watch my ass driving on mountain roads.
Hm. This is true. It’s not like such a young child could readily distinguish between “sleep”, “coma” and “death.” Might’ve thought mom was alive until obvious signs of decomposition had started. I had just assumed that when the kid was saying mom had been a live for awhile that there was more obvious signs of consciousness.
But that’s just it. If there are scrub trees obscuring your view then you can’t really say that you’ve “investigated” or really “looked.” It would be like me going to look for someone at home and saying “well, I looked in the windows and didn’t see anything” when the curtains are drawn.
There have been a number of stories about kids who were stuck with dead parents in houses, cars and they are all so sad. Five is so young. I think of my four year old son since he is close to that age and I get very sad to think of the fear and confusion they must experience.
Is this the other story that everyone is remembering?
Strangley, I vaguely recall another story that is much, much more like the OP in which the car was obsured by brush and was discovered by road workers.
Though I may be thinking about a news story that did not involve a child.
Gatoraide? Luxury!
I know college students that have lived SIX YEARS on Top Ramen and watered-down Kool-aide!
Fixed link. (Kid’s name was Angel? And this didn’t get glurged?)
And there was that elderly woman in Florida who drove off a bridge who survived for several days before being discovered - maybe the that’s the one you’re thinking of, Eats_Crayons?