Two little girls and their Golden Retriever recently returned home after they went missing in the Louisiana woods for over four hours on Monday night.
Gone Girls (And Golden Retriever)
Abigail Bourg and her sister Cecelia Bourg went missing around 5 p.m. The 7-year-old and 4-year-old had been playing outside with the family dog, a Golden Retriever named Artemis.
“They ran off. They were last seen in the yard, got turned around, it got dark, and then we started our search once we were notified,” St. Tammany Parish Sherriff Randy Smith told reporters.
Soon, a search team was dispatched near Folsom to look for the girls and the dog. More than 100 community volunteers assisted in the search, as did K9s, drones, and a helicopter.
Reunited at Last
Thankfully, Abigail and Cecelia were found along with Artemis. All three were reunited with their parents, who live on the 81000 block of N Willie Road in Folsom.
“That feeling of just, ‘Oh my gosh, what could happen to them, where are they?’ You start feeling the worst in those split seconds, too long,” the girls’ mother, Mary Bourg, told WDSU 6 News.
The girls’ dad, Justin Bourg, also admitted he had begun to think the worst.
“It was tough, I told them I said that was probably the most tears I cried in the last 20 years,” he told WDSU 6 News. “I don’t want to traumatize them, I want to keep that adventure mentality but also have a head about it and be smart.”
The family is already planning how to keep everyone safer, such as putting cameras in the yard and instructing the children on how to respond if they get lost in the woods again.
“We’re definitely going to look into some tracker watches or tracking equipment if they are out here and I’m going to do a better job of teaching them about the elements out here and I was hoping to have a little more time, but looks like they’re ready to do a lot more exploring,” Justin Bourg said.
What role the dog played in the girls getting lost or found remains unclear, but we bet the presence of Artemis was a hedge against despair for the little children during this frightening ordeal.
