Brighten Your Day

4-Year-Old Missing For 2 Days Found In The Woods With Dog By Her Side

March 30, 2020

Searchers found a 4-year-old girl who had been missing for two days in a wooded area in east Alabama.

The girl was in good condition with a dog at her side.

Photo: Clay Carson/AP

Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said searchers found Vadie Sides after two days of searching the woods.

Authorities said the child had disappeared from her babysitter's sight Wednesday afternoon while they were walking in a backyard with a hound dog.

"We took a walk but then I got too fast and got running and got lost and then I started calling for nanny but nanny was too far," Vadie said in a video her family posted Saturday morning.

A member of the search team that found the girl told media outlet WRBL-TV that they were searching the woods when they heard a dog bark, and then the girl "popped her head up" and they saw her bright red hair.

"I slept by a road one, the first night," Vadie said, "and the second night I slept where they found me."

"I do not have enough words to express the proper gratitude to all of our community that came out to help us find this little angel," Vadie's mother Amanda Sides wrote on Facebook. "Jay Jones, Jimmy Taylor, and the rest of the Lee County Sheriff's Department, Lee County, Alabama Emergency Management Agency, Auburn PD, Opelika PD, Air Force National Guard, Macon County Sheriff's Department.... the list goes on and on. Thank you all so much. We have been overwhelmed by the unending unbelievable support we've gotten from this community. Also, the people who kept me alive, force fed me water and chicken broth, searched the woods endlessly, and basically lived at Nanny's house until she was found.

I will probably never be able to thank you all enough. To all of the volunteers who came out in the middle of a global pandemic to traipse around in the woods, sometimes into the early morning hours, God Bless you all. Anyone I've forgotten just know that you are loved and we are incredibly grateful. We have been on an emotional roller coaster the last few days, and today I'm finally starting to breathe normally again."