A huge sigh of relief would barely begin to describe the reaction of searchers when a missing child was found safe Friday afternoon, August 28.
A call came into the Fannin County 911 Center at 3:18 p.m. that reported a three-year-old boy was missing from a cabin off River Way adjacent to the Toccoa River. The location is about a mile downstream from Blue Ridge Dam.
Fannin County Deputy Sheriff Caitlyn Collis, the first to arrive on the scene, said she immediately rushed to the river bank. With the Toccoa running wide open, this was the most dangerous location in the vicinity of the cabin.
When she did not see any signs of the little boy, she returned to the cabin where she and sheriff’s deputy Corporal John Kinser conducted an initial search of the large structure. There was still no sign of the child.
As more deputies and Emergency Management Agency personnel arrived, searchers combed the river bank upstream and downstream from the cabin. With the river fast and full, searchers reaching the scene had feared the worst.
Sheriff’s Office Investigations Captain Justin Turner said the first solid indication the young boy would be found safe was when the family told him the three-year-old was afraid of the river.
Investigator Scott Galloway said the child’s shirt and shoes had been found inside the residence, which led him to believe the child was “still in the house somewhere.”
With all the law enforcement officers on the scene, and parents who had likely become frantic, Galloway believed the child might have become scared.
An inch-by-inch search of the cabin was started. At the top of one of the staircases in the cabin, Galloway looked to his right and spotted the child, “stuck” behind a small night stand and a table. That was at 4:03 p.m., 45 minutes after the 911 call was received.
Fannin County Emergency Management Agency Director Robert Graham said, “We’re very thankful that the child was found safe.”
A total of 11 ambulance service and fire department personnel were on the scene with ten personnel from the sheriff’s office.
The three-year-old’s family, who was renting the cabin, was from Texas.