A 2-year-old girl who had wandered away from a campsite in the middle of the night was found safe Thursday morning, nearly four hours after her parents woke to find her missing, authorities say.
Two-year-old Blaklyn Greenleaf is reunited with her mother, Logan Greenleaf, after searchers found her Thursday morning. Photo courtesy of Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife
Blaklyn Greenleaf, who turned 2 last month, was found a few hundred yards from her parents’ camper, sitting atop a brush pile near one of the Jo-Mary Lake Campground’s parking areas, said Tyler Leach, the game warden who found her. The campground is in Brownville, south of Baxter State Park. The Greenleaf family is from Veazie.
“This is a good day … that it ended the way it did,” Leach said. “I think everybody is going home to give their kids a hug today.”
Authorities believe she had walked away from the campsite in the dark, down a dirt road between the camper and a lake down the hill, Leach said.
“It’s real hilly. It’s up and down, and winding roads, and there’s boulders and culverts and a couple of little brooks there,” he said. “So I mean, not easy terrain (for) walking, especially with little legs.”
Leach was part of a 40-person search group that included two warden service planes, a Piscataquis County Sheriff’s drone, three dogs and members of the Maine State Police, Warden Service, Forest Service, Marine Patrol and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office.
Leach said he and two others from the search group were working their way around the perimeter road, looking in boats and speaking with other campers, when they came across a parking lot. They were checking under boat trailers and inside the ice shacks that were in the parking lot, Leach said, when he looked over a little stone wall bordering the lot and made eye contact with the little girl.
She was quietly sitting with a pink pacifier in her mouth, dressed in floral pajamas and holding her blanket, Leach said. He had heard she was timid, so he approached her slowly and spoke to her like he would to his kids.
“I just said, ‘Hi honey,’ you know, ‘I’m here to help ya,'” said Leach, who then was able to pick her up. “I told her she was OK, and I told her, ‘we’re gonna go see your mama.'”
Once he notified his supervisor, Sgt. Andy Glidden, through the radio, Leach said, he hustled back down the hill and was met by Blaklyn’s father, Brady, who was sprinting toward them. Both father and daughter were crying, Leach said, and her mother, Logan, was speechless.
“I was coming down over the hill, everybody was turning and looking, all the other wardens, and officers and campers,” Leach said. “You could see like relief on their face she was found.”
Leach, who has three daughters, including one who is about a year older than Blaklyn, feels for the parents.
“That’s a really hard position to be in,” he said. “(Toddlers) can get in anything or out anywhere, they’re like magicians.”
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