Community teams up to find and bring missing 4-year-old girl home

• Shayla Page, 4, went missing while playing with the neighbor’s dogs.
• Local authorities teamed up and deployed over 100 personnel, sniffer dogs, horses, helicopters, and drones to find her.
• The whole community celebrated when the little girl was finally found and reunited with her family.

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A whole community rallied to help find and bring a missing four-year-old back home.

Bianca Page has been letting her daughter Shayla play with the neighbor’s two dogs countless times.

But one Wednesday afternoon, Bianca discovered all three of them were missing after being gone for only about half an hour. Hoping that Shayla was only playing her favorite game of hide and seek, she hoped that she would soon turn up.

But Bianca soon realized that it was not the case and that she had to report her daughter as missing.

Local authorities in southern Tasmania leapt into action. Within the day, over 100 personnel, sniffer dogs, horses, helicopters, and drones were looking for Shayla.

The search had just started when one of the missing dogs found its way back home. The second dog was then found about 700 meters from their home. But there was still no sign of Shayla.

Everyone remained vigilant and determined as the two-day mark passed.

"This is still a search and rescue operation."

Tasmanian search crews remain hopeful a missing four-year-old girl will be found alive and well as the search enters its third day.

Shayla Phillips was last seen on Wednesday.

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Eventually, they came across a heavily wooded area on a slope.

Inspector Gavin Hallet said that they knew they had to get on their hands and knees to look for her, and that is how they found her.

“It seems like perhaps she had been lying down and just stuck her head up and she was seen,” he shared. “It was just at the right place at the right time, had the SES volunteer been looking to the left and not the right we could still be doing this search.”

Shayla had spent two whole nights alone in the bushland. She was disoriented and dehydrated, but she was soon reunited with her family.

Inspector Gavin shared that Shayla’s mom was naturally “very keen” to see her daughter and rushed to the scene. Their reunion was understandably “very emotional.”

The whole town also celebrated the young girl’s return.

Carey Sharman, who helped bring food to the search crews as a member of the Country Women’s Association, shared, “There was yelling and screaming, and everyone was just really excited.”

Tasman Council Mayor Kelly Spaulding said the team effort between police, emergency services, and civilian volunteers was “amazing.”

Source: Inspire More