WATCH ABOVE: A one-year-old boy was found wandering out of his home dressed only in a t-shirt and socks, near Somerled avenue and Grand boulevard in NDG. Rachel Lau reports.
NOTRE-DAME-DE-GRACE – For a quick moment, Debra Mendel felt like her heart had stopped.
She was on her balcony Thursday night around 6:15 p.m. when she spotted a small child playing unaccompanied in a puddle.
“I told my daughter ‘stay on the balcony’ and I went downstairs and he wasn’t there when I went downstairs,” Mendel told Global News.
“I just ran.”
The boy, just over the age of one, had left his home near Somerled avenue and Grand boulevard in NDG.
He had no jacket or boots.
“His toes were blue, his fingertips were blue.”
“It was cold,” said Mendel.
Apparently, the boy’s mother was in the bathroom.
Reacting fast, Mendel rushed outside, wrapped him up in her coat and took him to the nearby police station.
“He didn’t have the capacity to know what he was doing,” said Mendel.
“He was just kind of playing in traffic, started walking on the sidewalk after, not clothed.”
This is just the latest case of a toddler found wandering outside alone in the freezing cold at night.
“I don’t think parents realize it’s childrens’ jobs to learn – to learn and discover,” said Nancy Reynolds, a childproofing expert with Baby Secure.
“That’s how they become self sufficient people and anything that sticks out, like doorknobs, they just go for.”
Reynolds insisted it doesn’t take a lot of effort to keep your child safe.
“People feel things are going to look ugly, they feel it’s going to be inconvenient for them but what can be more inconvenient than a child walking down in the middle of the street at a year and a half?” she said.
Mendel said she could only think of one thing as she held the cold boy in her arms – 3-year-old Elijah Marsh, who had frozen to death after leaving his Toronto apartment.
“First thing I thought of was when I saw the baby was that little boy Elijah,” she said.
“First thing, right away I was like ‘oh my God’ because there’s no mother around.”
The boy has since been returned to his family safe and sound.
There are no charges against the mother.
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