A parent’s greatest nightmare is to lose their child.
Mary and Justin Bourg experienced this nightmare for a few hours when their daughters, and their dog, went missing from their home.
Seven-year-old Abigail and four-year-old Cecilia were playing in their yard in Folsom, Louisiana, when they wandered off into the woods and got lost.
They were with their pet Golden Retriever Artemis.
Mom Mary works from home and told WDSU News that their typical routine after school involves the girls having a snack and chatting with their mom.
Then Mary goes back to work while the girls play until she’s finished working.
On the day they disappeared, she checked on them shortly after five in the afternoon. But they were gone.
Mary called her husband to tell him what had happened, and he rushed home from work.
He didn’t feel the need to alert the authorities at the beginning of the ordeal, but this changed as more time passed.
“Originally, I was very confident we were going to find them in the woods. That’s their favorite place to go play but once three, three and a half hours was kind of creeping up on us on the clock, I was getting more dark thoughts,” Justin told WWLTV News.
Search and rescue teams, including community volunteers, used drones, helicopters, and ATVs to look for the girls.
They spent hours searching the woods. Justin estimates the girls had wandered about three to four hundred yards away from their home.
The girls and Artemis were found just before 9 p.m. and were reunited with their parents.
Cecilia told WDSU News they were having an adventure with their dog Artemis before they got lost.
Older sister Abigail said when they realized they were lost, they sat down and began playing games.
Fortunately, staying put allowed the rescuers to find the girls faster.
Artemis helped the rescuers find them through his barking.
“When people found them, he was growling. I don’t know how long it took for the people to be able to actually get access to the kids because he was protecting them,” Mary said.
Mary and Justin said they were overwhelmed with how many people came to help and search for the girls. Many of them were strangers they didn’t know personally.
“There was just nothing people would stop at until our babies were found, so we’re just more than grateful,” Mary shared.
She said they couldn’t explain how grateful they were that everyone just stepped up immediately and without questions.
The family spent the next day relaxing together at home, savoring each moment with each other.
“It was tough, I told them that was probably the most tears I cried in the last 20 years,” Justin told the reporters.
While Mary and Justin don’t want their daughters to be traumatized by the incident and lose their sense of adventure, they want to ensure that something like this never happens again.
The parents say they are considering installing cameras in their backyard which leads to the woods for added security.
They will also teach their daughters what to do if they ever get lost in the woods again.
We are so happy the family is reunited and that this story has a happy ending, thanks to the community coming together to help find the missing children.
Of course, we can’t forget that Artemis stayed with the girls the whole time and helped make sure they were safe.
To see the story of how the missing girls were found with the help of their dog, watch the video below!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
