Journalist Sent To Cover Italian Toddler's Dissappearence Finds Child In The Mountains

A 21-month-old Italian toddler who went missing was found two days later about 3 miles away from his home by a reporter sent to cover his disappearance.

A helicopter and a group of about 1000 people including police, fire, and alpine rescuers were searching for Nicola Tanturli after he was reported missing since Monday, June 21, from his home in Palazzuolo Sul Senio, near Florence.

On Wednesday, Giuseppe Di Tommaso, a journalist with Italian state broadcaster Rai, was on his way to the child’s home to cover the news when he pulled over to the side of the road to take a break.

That’s when he heard moans coming from a gorge near the road.

After a close inspection, he realized that the cries were coming from the bottom of a wooded slope.

"I started to yell, 'Nicola,' to understand if it could be the child. I heard 'mamma,' Tommaso said on RAI. "I started to repeat the word 'mamma,' because children of that age repeat words. When I intuited that it could be Nicola, I went down into the ravine."

Tommaso stopped a Carabinieri police car and alerted the officers.

Officers didn’t believe him initially "this being an area full of animals that make sounds that can sound like a child," Tommaso said.

However, the commander of the local Carabinieri lowered himself about 25m (82ft) down expecting to find a small deer but instead found the missing toddler.

"I heard clearer cries and expected an animal to come out," Commander Danilo Ciccarelli told a news conference. "Instead, Nicola came out with his head in the high grass and said 'mamma'. It was a beautiful feeling."

It was "a tremendous joy to bring him back to his mother's arms," the officer said.

The child had woken up in the middle of the night and walked out of his isolated house in the Apennine mountains.

He was taken to a nearby hospital for medical checks. Doctors said the toddler appears to only have suffered minor injuries.

"The emotion was huge. I'm still shaken," Ansa news agency quoted the journalist as saying.

Mayor Gian Piero Philip Moschetti told a news conference that Tanturli "is a very active child, very lively".

"He could walk for a kilometer (half a mile) an hour. We have no idea how much distance he could have covered. He was used to going out of the house and living outdoors."