Facebook Campaign Leads to Safe Recovery of Diabetic Brisbane Teenager
Facebook could be such a pain in the ass at times, but one can never belittle its efficiency and effectiveness when it comes to helping people locate missing loved ones. And again, for the nth time, the social networking media site has been the most helpful tool in the safe recovery of a diabetic Brisbane teenager who went missing two days ago.
Thirteen-year-old Connaire Daniels, who was ironically found at a house just some 20km from home, left their Salisbury home on Sunday at 11.30am to meet up with friends at South Bank. He told his parents he would catch a train going there.
Unfortunately, the young lad has no mobile phone so the possibility to check on his whereabouts was a hundred percent impossible.
And then he didn't return home that Sunday night.
Apparently, he was just holed up in a friend's house all throughout while his family searched high and low for him. His sister eventually turned to Facebook and another social site, Twitter, to ask for assistance. At 10.30pm on Monday, Connaire was found - safe, breathing and very much alive.
His family immediately panicked not only for his safety but also for his health. Connaire was a diabetic.
"You think okay, he's missed the train. I got in the car and went for a drive and couldn't find him," his mother, Margaret Daniels, told ABC.
What got Mrs Daniels all the more worried because she feared her son mught end up just like another Daniel Morcombe case.
"You just start thinking, unfortunately, all the worst. Daniel Morcombe comes into your mind because he was 13 as well," she said.
Daniel was a 13-year-old Australian boy abducted from Sunshine Coast on Dec 7, 2003. He planned to catch the 1:35 pm bus to the Sunshine Plaza Shopping Centre for a haircut and to buy Christmas presents for his family, but failed to return. Investigation related to his death is still ongoing.
"He left, went to South Bank, to meet with some friends, but a couple of them didn't turn up."
He must have probably decided to return home, boarded a train but wrongly ended on the Cleveland line.
"It just went horribly wrong from there," Mrs Daniels said. "We haven't really spoken to him too much, but we believe he spent the night in a house."
She is very much relieved now to see her son. But it seems Connaire isn't totally off the hook yet.
"He was sad and sorry for himself, we thought 'you're home, get to bed and we will talk about it in the morning'."