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For nursing-home workers, helping missing Fowler girl, 12, is all that matters
By Ed Runyan
FOWLER
Neither the police who organized searches for her nor the ladies at the nursing home where she went for food know why a 12-year-old girl walked away from her home in Wednesday afternoon and disappeared.
But for staff members at the Concord Care nursing home, the only thing that matters is they were able to feed her, comfort her, give her a blanket and some dry clothes.
“We got her in the door. We brought her in the dining hall, we fed her and immediately began assessing that she was very cold, and we started changing her clothes and getting her into dry things and warming her up and talking to her,” said Christy Romig, assistant nursing director.
The girl, who is home-schooled, weighs 65 pounds, has some emotional challenges, and has run away before. She left home about 2 p.m. Wednesday and was recovered safe at the nursing home 2.7 miles away. She lives in the Fowler Mobile Home Park on Sodom Hutchings Road. Her family did not want to speak to reporters, police said.
Law enforcement started searching for her Wednesday night, and about 20 officers with two police dogs went back out early Thursday looking for her until they got the call from the nursing home about 10:30 a.m. Officers from the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office, Fowler police and other agencies assisted.
“One of our staff members alerted us that there was a child at the front door, and she was asking for food,” said Char MacKnight, Concord Care nursing director. “We had just had just had a discussion about her and the fact that we were going to alert our staff to be on the lookout for her.”
The story of the missing girl was on the news late Wednesday and early Thursday. “We immediately sent Jill [Wadley, social worker] out to bring her in,” MacKnight said.
“She was at the door, and I asked her if she wanted to come in, and she said yes, she wanted food,” Wadley said. “I asked her where she was coming from, and she said she was headed to Kinsman Park, which she knew there was a playground there.” The park is a 20-minute ride by car.
The girl “didn’t tell me why or who she was meeting, but she definitely was cold,” Wadley said. “She wanted to give me a dollar to take her to IGA. I said, ‘Well, let’s get you some food first and then we’ll worry about where you’re going.’”
Wadley said the girl had fried chicken, a cookie and hot chocolate. “She was very welcoming to that,” Wadley said. When asked if the girl seemed upset, Wadley said she “seemed really relieved she was here and she got to sit down. I asked her how she got so wet, and she said ‘puddles.’ And I said, ‘You’re really wet for puddles.’ So she had been laying somewhere.”
When asked where she had been during the night, the girl only said “‘out,’” Wadley said.
“I told her I was glad she came to see us, and we made sure medically she was OK. She’s a very sweet girl. Our hearts were breaking for her. We were trying to be strong, but it was really hard with all of us being moms,” Romig said.
Police came and confirmed that this was the missing girl. Before an ambulance arrived to take her to a hospital to be treated for hypothermia and to get checked out, Romig told her that she can always come to the nursing home if she needs help again.
“I told her if she ever needed anything, it’s a safe place,” Romig said.