A HOLIDAY nightmare for a Belfast family ended happily when four year old Caoimhe McEvoy, missing for over 20 hours, was found 15 miles from her family's hotel in Orlando, Florida.
A spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department said Caoimhe was found wandering along a road in an area called North Pine Hills, north west of Orlando. Although she was taken to hospital for evaluation, as was routine in such cases, it appeared she had not been harmed. It was assumed she had been driven to the spot.
Mary (35) and Gerard (38) McEvoy noticed their daughter was missing at about 6 p.m. on Sunday. It had been assumed she was playing in the room next door, where her grand parents, on holidays with the family at the Quality Inn motel on International Drive, were staying. The family had returned from one of the many theme parks in Orlando earlier and was packing to return home to Belfast yesterday.
Mr and Mrs McEvoy searched the immediate area before calling the police at 7.30 p.m. Initially, 40 police were involved but this was increased after dark. Overnight and early yesterday, 100 police and the sheriff's deputies joined members of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, mounted police, police divers, dog units and the FBI.
A spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department said a missing child was taken extremely seriously. The search very quickly became a national one, the reason why the FBI was involved.
He said the police were working on the assumption that Caoimhe had been abducted.
Caoimhe was found just after 2 p.m. Florida time yesterday by a pedestrian, who waited with the little girl for the police to arrive.