7-year-old leaves school alone, crosses highway and turns up 3 miles away, NC mom says
A 7-year-old boy walked out of his elementary school in North Carolina after dismissal on Tuesday and was found miles away after crossing a busy highway.
Now the school district is investigating.
Raphael Jackson left W.T. Brown Elementary School in Spring Lake before his father came to pick him up, his mom, Kiara Hardin told McClatchy news group Thursday. He was found three miles away at the Skyland Shopping Center, The Fayetteville Observer reported.
Lindsay A. Whitley, associate superintendent for communications at Cumberland County Schools, said the district is working to find out what happened.
“We have processes and procedures in place to provide an orderly and safe school dismissal process for our students,” she said in a statement. “District and school officials are investigating this situation to determine exactly what occurred and will respond appropriately.”
Hardin’s ex-husband and Raphael’s father called her Tuesday afternoon around 2:15 p.m. to say he was missing, she said. Hardin spent the next 45 minutes in “full panic.”
“I instantly with some not-so-holy words asked what did he mean ‘missing’ and he said no one had seen him,” she said over Facebook Messenger.
Hardin said she’s trying to figure out how her child managed to leave the school. He’s always been a car rider, but she said Raphael told her his teacher said he could walk home.
The second grader is enrolled at T.C. Berrien Elementary in Fayetteville, which closed for repairs in November due to mold, WRAL reported. The students were all transferred to W.T. Brown, 10 miles away in Spring Lake.
Raphael had to cross N.C. 210 to get from the school to the shopping center that includes a Family Dollar and Marathon store, The Fayetteville Observer reported.
A manager at Marathon told the newspaper that Raphael looked lost and was just wandering around.
Hardin said a pediatric nurse found him after he was almost hit by a car. She asked him where he was going and he gave her his address, which she put in a GPS.
“It was 10 miles (in) the opposite direction,” she said. The nurse then called the school.
Hardin was just leaving work in nearby Robeson County when she got the call he had been found.
“He was dragging when he was finally found,” she said, but otherwise OK. “He says he was going to make a PB&J sandwich.”
This story was originally published December 5, 2019 at 6:49 PM.
