Parents Drive 93 Miles, Realize They Forgot Girl, 3

They heard alert on radio after girl was picked up by police
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 10, 2015 10:10 AM CDT
Parents Drive 93 Miles, Realize They Forgot Girl, 3
Cars line up at a toll on the Autoroute du Soleil, the highway on which a French family was traveling when they left their 3-year-old at a rest stop.   (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

When hitting the road on a summer holiday, you're bound to forget something. Hopefully it's not your toddler. Police are questioning a French family after they apparently forgot their 3-year-old daughter at a rest stop while heading south to the French Riviera for a vacation. Travelers found the girl yesterday at a rest stop outside Loriol-sur-Drome, south of Valence, and waited for her family to return before calling police. The child could only tell officers that she had a brother and a sister and was "going to the seaside" when she saw "daddy's car pull away," per the Guardian. Police issued an alert and the parents only noticed their mistake when they heard it on the radio about 45 minutes after the girl was found.

The child had apparently been left at the rest stop—which included a playground, per Sky News—around midday. "None of them had noticed she wasn't there" in the vehicle, an officer says. The BBC reports the girl's father called police at 3pm. By that point, the family had traveled 93 miles and were more than halfway to their destination. They turned around and were reunited with their daughter about two hours later at a police station. Police were questioning the girl's parents last night to ensure the incident was just a case of forgetfulness. "We are going to listen to what they have to say and talk to the prosecutor at Valence to see if this should be taken further," the officer says. They're still likely to lose out on the Parents of the Year award thanks to this pair. (More lost child stories.)

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