Lost kid found hours later
2003-09-08 23:07
Cape Town - What should have been a relaxing stroll along the beach turned into a exhausting hike for a six-year-old boy from Parow who got lost among the dunes for more than nine hours.
Neil Leibrandt walked kilometres along the West Coast near Melkbosstrand while his family were searching for him.
His mother, Liezl Leibrandt, said Neil apparently got lost when he took a wrong turn after relieving himself behind a rock.
"There is a small peninsula with fairly large dunes. We were on the south side, but Neil apparently walked to the north. When he got there, he couldn't see us."
Neil said he tried to orientate himself by climbing a dune to view the area.
"I saw cars and walked that way, but when I got there, they were the wrong cars. I saw another car and walked to it, but when I got there, there was no one."
Neil was wearing shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt at the time. The shells hurt his feet, he said.
Leibrandt said they started searching for him at 16:00.
"A friend of a friend even helped to search with a micro-light plane. We phoned the police and eventually about 40 people were searching. The police's dog unit, a helicopter, the National Sea Rescue Institute, Delta rescue group, the Metro emergency services, fire brigade and Cape disaster management all helped. I cannot thank them enough."
She said someone noticed footprints in the sand and compared them to some Neil's footprints next to the fire.
"It had the same pattern," she explained.
Meanwhile, the sun went down and Neil looked for somewhere to sleep.
He eventually fell asleep on a rock. "It was very cold. Then I saw a yellow light on a car and walked there. When they saw me, the people shouted: 'There he is!'. They threw a large jacket over me because I was very cold and gave me coffee with lots of sugar in."
Leibrandt said that when Neil got into bed with her at about 03:00, he confessed something.
"He said: 'Mom, I did cry, but I didn't tell the people that'."