By Andrew de Souza

Grandparents save missing child from the cold

Oct 28, 2010 | 6:34 AM

Julien and Ruth Fiddler are happy they found a lost three-year-old before the sun dropped below the horizon and temperatures fell past freezing.

“Good thing he came in here, it was cold last night he would have froze,” said Julien inside his warm, 15th Street home.

“We’re just lucky the way it turned out.”

On Tuesday evening, at around 5:30 p.m. a man parked his 1993 Ford Explorer at the Co-Op Gas Bar on 2nd Avenue, almost completely out of the view of security cameras.

The man went into the store to ask the clerk for a tire gauge. As he did, the cameras saw white sneakers enter the truck the man had just stepped out of. The person with white sneakers then drove away.

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When the truck’s owner stepped outside, he realized his truck was stolen. But more importantly, the truck contained his three-year-old son.

Just a few minutes later, and a few blocks away, Julien was shovelling his walkway when he noticed two teenagers approaching him.

Some seconds later he saw a much younger child running after them from the alley behind his house, crying.

“It was getting dark, he was panicking, I could hear him crying, I didn’t know what the heck was happening,” said Julien.

The teenagers told him they had no idea who the toddler was or where he had come from.

They all agreed it the police should be called. Julien said the boy could come into his house and the teens could be on their way.

Inside, Julien’s wife Ruth gave the boy, an orange, a banana, some milk, and called the police.

Ruth sat the boy down near the window and opened the blinds. As he watched the traffic, Ruth says the child calmed down and warmed up.

“It helped to have the window open and the cars going by because he was looking for his dad,” said Ruth.

He stayed at the Fiddler’s home for half an hour, before police and the Mobile Crisis arrived.

Mobile Crisis took the young boy to be reunited with his parents, and early the next morning, police found the missing truck.

The Fiddlers see it as a good thing they moved to that particular home six years ago.

“If he had got really panicky-scared and tried to hide or something, he would have froze,” said Julien.

“It’s just a good thing we spotted him.”

For Ruth, the event helped reaffirm her faith in teenagers, who helped the boy in the first place.
It also was a small adventure that ended well, she said.

“I wouldn’t want to run into that sort of thing often,” said Ruth. “Once in my lifetime is plenty.”

Police did not release the name of the boy or his father.

They have arrested and charged a 20-year-old man with the theft of the vehicle.

adesouza@rawlco.com