FROM TEARS TO ELATION
Frantic search for child leads to happy ending
Three-year-old boy missing for four hours

DON'T CRY MOM: Three-year-old Cody Stafford wipes a tear from his mother's eye Monday after he and Trina Stafford were reunited at their Penniac home. Cody had been missing for almost four hours. THE DAILY GLEANER/DAVID SMITH PHOTO

By MICHAEL STAPLES
mstaples@dailygleaner.com

They were four of the most painful hours Trina Stafford has ever spent.

The Penniac resident was on pins and needles most of Monday afternoon as friends, family and police searched the woods around her Christie Road home and along the banks of the Nashwaak River for her three-year-old son, Cody.

The child went missing just before noon Monday.

Panic turned into elation, however, when the boy and his two small dogs, Patch and Scrappy, were found unharmed near the Nashwaak River at 3:45 p.m. by a family friend.

"I would never want anyone to go through this," Stafford said after having a tearful reunion with her son. "It's just too hard to describe."

Stafford said she discovered her son missing about 11:50 a.m.

"I just looked up and he was gone, along with the dogs," she said. "I was at least happy they were with him. I knew Patch and Scrappy wouldn't let anyone near him."

Cody was found by Penniac resident Gary Saunders on a narrow piece of ice by the riverbank. He said he was walking along, hoping to see some sign of Cody when he noticed the two dogs.

"I saw him and I whooped," Saunders said, battling back tears.

"He took to crying, saw me and came right to me. He wouldn't let go."

GRATEFUL DAD: Albert Stafford, right, shakes Gary Saunders's hand Monday after Saunders found Stafford's three-year-old son Cody. THE DAILY GLEANER/DAVID SMITH PHOTO

Saunders said Cody went on "quite an adventure," travelling about two kilometres in a horseshoe-shaped loop. He said the child was lucky he didn't fall in the river.

"I'm relieved," said Cody's father, Albert Stafford, Jr. "This was the first time he has ever done this. Sometimes he would try to dart away, but that was just in the yard."

He said the only thing he could figure out was that his son was trying to make his way to his grandfather's camp.

"I went up there," Cody said pointing to the woods. "I went up and down."

Const. Merl Millier of District 2 RCMP in Oromocto said family members were upset when police arrived. Several volunteers also helped out. The priority at that point was to get everyone organized as quickly as possible, he said.

"We set up a little map of checkpoints where they could go," Millier said. "The gentleman who found Cody was at one of the checkpoints."

All of the searchers had cellphones and kept in touch with police, Millier said.

Also at the scene was the RCMP tracking dog, which was on the boy's scent when he was eventually discovered. RCMP had also made plans to bring in two helicopters and the York Sunbury Search and Rescue group.

Rescue group members had just started to arrive when the hunt was called off.

"It couldn't have been any better for us, the family and everybody involved," Millier said. "It was a good team effort to find Cody."

Millier said time was a big factor and he was grateful the child was found before it became dark and colder.