In an unimaginable moment of tragedy, a mother’s desperate Facebook plea to find her lost toddler ended in heartbreak, when her son was discovered dead in a Wolverhampton canal. The young lad, just two-years-old, is believed to have slipped away from his family home to “feed the ducks”, but was found lifeless on Sunday evening.
Despite exhaustive efforts by emergency crews, the West Midlands Ambulance Service confirmed the child was declared deceased at the scene. Eyewitnesses described harrowing scenes, with piercing screams marking the moment the toddler’s body was recovered near 6pm.
Neighbours have revealed the tormented mum resorted to social media in an anguished bid to locate her little one mere hours before the devastating discovery. A local recounted the urgent nature of the frantic social media appeal: “From what we can work out he got out of his home and came here. One of my mates was out looking for him yesterday because she lives locally.
“She heard the mum screaming. She was here screaming, she was standing there in pure shock. She was in a state of shock. My friend was out looking for him, she heard he’d gone missing. He’d been missing for a couple of hours. She put up on Facebook that he was missing.”
The resident continued: “She heard the mum screaming. She was here screaming, she was standing there in pure shock. She was in a state of shock. My friend was out looking for him, she heard he’d gone missing. He’d been missing for a couple of hours. She put up on Facebook that he was missing.”
Facing the canal where the sorrowful event took place, a local described the atmosphere to Birmingham Live: “It’s tragic. All the police were here yesterday. We saw all the police here, there were police cars and police drones. We had ambulances too. The whole area was shut off, it was going manic.”
Following the tragic incident, the cordoned off zone where emergency crews were deployed last night is now accessible again, but locals are still reeling from the shock.
The young mum, aged 21, conveyed her grief: “It’s awful what’s happened. We heard he was coming down to feed the ducks. We came today to pay our respects. We’ve only just moved into our house. It really is quiet, you don’t get anything around here.”
