BOSTON — An Allston mother is counting her blessings after complete strangers helped find her little boy who went missing on Friday night. She’s hoping to reconnect with them to express her gratitude.
Amil Parilla has found comfort in the kindness of strangers, after several stopped everything, they were doing to look for her missing 7-year-old son.
“It was so scary because you never think it’s going to happen to you,” Parilla recalled.
The 46-year-old mother explained her son, CJ is autistic and non-verbal, so when he left the house around 7 p.m. on his own, without jacket or shoes in the dead of winter, she was worried to say the least.
“I was a crazy woman, just running down the street, asking everyone,” Parilla said.
During her search, Parilla ran into a couple who had spotted CJ and enlisted their help to find him. She also found a police officer and a man on a motorcycle who helped by going up and down nearby roads.
A short time later, the mother found CJ near Harvard Avenue and Cambridge Street, heading toward the overpass.
“My son was with three people and there was this one guy who gave my son his jacket and he was just holding my son,” Parilla said choked up.
Found about half a mile from home, Parilla estimates CJ was missing for an hour-and-half, but said it was the longest 90 minutes of her life.
Parilla explained she was so distraught in the moment, all she could think to do was to get her son home and warmed up, never getting the change to say thank you.
“I’m forever grateful for them,” Parilla said. “I don’t know how to thank them, but I just think like man, what if my son wasn’t found? That’s so scary.”
Parilla is hoping to she’ll be able to find the Good Samaritans one day to express her gratitude to the people who refused to look away.
“I just can’t believe this happened to me. I can’t believe I almost lost my son that day,” Parilla said.
If this story sounds familiar and you know the Good Samaritans in question, please reach out to the Boston25 newsroom, and we’ll connect them with the mother for a much-needed reunion.
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