The couple was just picking up the child from the welfare home and returning home, with journalist Long Yudan taking the photo.
The wife handed the son over to the husband, who then made the child wait at a friend's doorstep.
The less-than-two-year-old child went missing for two days before the careless parents noticed. Fortunately, the police officers from Jinchen Police Station took care of him.
It is a common scene on TV or in real life: when a child gets lost, the parents are anxiously searching everywhere. But Kong, who always regards her child as her own life and has never left her child since birth, could never imagine that such a scenario would happen to her. On December 9th, Ms. Kong and her husband Mr. Xu were careless, each busy with their own errands, leaving their one-year-and-11-month-old child at the doorstep of a neighbor and both left. Both thought the other had taken the child until noon on the 11th, after a phone call, they realized the child was lost. Luckily, someone reported it on the day the child got lost, and the police officers from Jinchen Police Station temporarily took care of the child, who was then sent to the Children's Welfare Institute. Yesterday afternoon, the exhausted couple finally picked up their child.
Yesterday morning, Ms. Kong from Xiaocun Village came to Jinchen Police Station again to process the procedures for reclaiming her child. "I dreamt about my child crying every night these past two days, 'Mommy, I want to go home, I can't find the way'." Although the whereabouts of the child have been confirmed, Ms. Kong was still very emotional when mentioning her child who had been lost for several days, unable to hold back her tears.
Ms. Kong said that at around 7 a.m. on the 9th, she planned to go out to handle some matters and handed the child over to her husband who was at home, asking him to take the child to work. However, she didn't expect that her husband, Mr. Xu, left the child alone at the doorstep of an unopened laundry shop near their home while going to work. When she returned half an hour later after finishing her errand, she saw the door locked and the child gone, assuming her husband had taken the child to work. That day, Ms. Kong went to a friend's house, and not until the morning of the 11th did she miss her child and called her husband, asking him to bring the son back. However, on the other end of the phone, her husband said he didn't have the child with him but had left him at the doorstep of a nearby laundry shop before leaving.
"When I heard this news, it felt like the sky fell down. If I couldn't find the child, I wouldn't want to live anymore." Upon hearing this, Mr. Xu also rushed back. Afterwards, the couple called 110 to report the loss, printed photos of the child and posted them everywhere...but there was no news at all. Until around 2 p.m., the anxious couple received a call from Jinchen Police Station, saying the child was with them.
At the police station, after confirmation, the child previously taken in by the police station was indeed Ms. Kong's child. Mr. Xu introduced that he and his wife run a decoration company, usually doing decoration projects at the new Kunming airport, returning home once every few days, and his wife generally returns quickly when going out for errands. Not long after his wife left that day, he also went to work. Thinking his wife would return soon, and not wanting to lock the child inside, and knowing the laundry shop owner well who would definitely help look after the child, he placed the child at the entrance of the laundry shop.
"I thought she would see the child upon returning, and these past few days, she has been taking care of the child. It wasn't until I made the call that I found out the child was lost. We were too careless." After this incident, Ms. Kong deeply regretted her carelessness, "If I had called my husband as soon as I returned, maybe this wouldn't have happened. This won't happen again."
Officer Chen from Jinchen Police Station stated that at 9 a.m. on the 9th, when he first entered the police station, the 110 command center transmitted an emergency call, stating that there was a lost child at the door of No. 15 Jinzhuang Road. When he arrived, he only saw the child crying alone on the roadside. The child could only shout "Dad" and "Mom," unable to say anything else. In an emergency, Officer Chen immediately reported the specific features of the child to the 110 command center, hoping that the 110 command center could quickly link up the child's loss alarm. Subsequently, the police officers from Jinchen Police Station drove around multiple times in the surrounding area to visit residents but obtained no information about the child's parents. Thinking the child's parents would soon find the child through reporting, the police settled the child in the police station and bought milk, diapers, etc., with three police officers taking turns to take care of the child. Although a few parents of lost children came to check during this period, none of them matched. By the afternoon of the 10th, no one had come to claim the child at the police station, and the police also failed to find any information about the child. Due to the tight manpower at the police station, on the afternoon of the 10th, Jinchen Police Station contacted the Kunming Children's Welfare Institute and sent the child there. Not until 2:14 p.m. on the 11th did the 110 command center transmit another message, stating that a couple’s child was lost. After comparing photos and preliminary confirmation, the child was indeed from Ms. Kong's family.
In the morning, the police station issued relevant certificates, and Ms. Kong also brought along family portraits and the child's birth certificate and other materials, heading to the Kunming Children's Welfare Institute. Until 4 p.m., after all procedures were completed, Ms. Kong finally walked out of the Children's Welfare Institute with her child who had been lost for two days. Subsequently, Ms. Kong called our newspaper: "I am very grateful to the police officers from Jinchen Police Station. I also want to use the media to thank the person who reported it. If it weren't for them, my originally happy family might have collapsed because of this." (By journalist Liu Xianbing) (Metropolitan Times)