Oh man, this one'll give you nightmares if you have little ones, so fair warning.
Mom, Kelly Mulholland, took to TikTok last week to explain the ordeal, and I feel like you need to at least watch the first few seconds of it just to hear the kid's voice on the Ring doorbell, so here you go:
"Would you help me find my mommy."
Now that's enough to make a grown man tear up a little. Not saying that's me, but hypothetically, you know, like someone might tear up.
This was these kids' first time on the bus, and I'll assume the driver's first day of the year as well, if not, his very first day.
So it sounds like the bus driver just completely biffed it here and let the kids off at the wrong stop. No excuses, he didn't check the tags on the kids' backpacks which would've told him it was the wrong stop; and he also dropped them off without a parent present (not to mention the fact that it was 105 degrees out). 100% on the driver here, and I'm not just saying that to make him look bad.
More from the story:
When she went to pick up her kids at the bus stop they were supposed to be dropped off, the bus was an hour late and the kids were nowhere to be found. Mulholland said it was an older kid on the bus - not the driver - who told her that her kids had been dropped off at a previous stop.
Mulholland said the bus driver could not tell her where he dropped off the kids and didn't know the name of the street.
Sounds like maybe I do want to be upset at the driver. However, I'm gonna skip that whole stance because it's played out.
Remember that Ring doorbell the kid was sobbing to?
She said she went back to her car to tell her boyfriend what was happening. At that moment, a car pulled up and asked her if she was looking for two kids, she said. The driver explained that he had gotten a notification from his Ring security camera that showed two kids asking for help.
Mulholland said she drove to the driver's house, but the kids were not there. They then enlisted the help of neighbors to find the children.
In the meantime, I kid you not, these two 5-year-olds — one, the son of Kelly, one, the daughter of her boyfriend — in 105-degree heat, took turns ringing doorbells throughout the neighborhood they'd been dropped off in. One stood watch at the sidewalk, while the other approached the given home.
They did this for about an hour in 105-degree heat.
AN HOUR!
Crazy that neither of them passed out, or worse.
The kids were eventually found "a few houses down" from the owner of the Ring doorbell footage and about half a mile from the bus stop where they were dropped off.
Man, can you imagine?
That'd be like the longest hug of my life.
When kids go missing it's not just about the 105-degree heat, or the fact that they're confused and lost. Your brain will play all sorts of tricks on you in these situations, putting your kids in the back seat of a trafficker's vehicle, or at the jaws of a pit bull. There's no telling what was going through these parents' minds.
I'm so glad they found them, and so glad that Ring doorbells exist.
Parents, please make a plan with your kids so they know what to do in situations like this. It's always someone else's kid until the one time that it's yours.
Here's part 2 of that TikTok video if you're interested.
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