Teacher helps reunite lost 5-year-olds with families

MELROSE, Mass. — Elaine Ivy called it human instinct.

“I am sure any other person in the woods would have been, ‘Kids alone...bad idea,’" said Ivy.

The kids alone in this case were two boys around the age of five, named Brandon and Anton. Ivy, an 8th Grade English teacher at the Ferryway School in Malden, spotted the pair Wednesday around 5 p.m. while walking in the woods near Jerry Jingle Park in Melrose.

“And I said, ‘Hey, you guys are kind of young to be in the forest by yourself,’" said Ivy. “And they said, ‘Oh our parents are right there,’ And I said, ‘Okay,’ and so we kept walking and I said, ‘Let’s go back and check on them.’”

Ivy said the boys weren’t in the same spot as before, they were much further away. But when she and her friend caught up to them, they told them what was really happening.

“And they go, ‘We’re way lost now,’” said Ivy.

The boys were not just lost, they were a mile away from their family members, who had decided to go for a hike in the woods near Stoneham’s Greenwood Park.

“Brandon and his friend Anton went running ahead, which has happened when we’ve gone hiking before,” said Justine Myers, Brandon’s Mom. “We got to an area where the woods split and we didn’t see them.”

At first, the group thought the boys might be hiding.

“We started yelling their names and they didn’t answer,” Myers said. “At first I was like, ‘This can’t really be, like are they really lost? They must be somewhere close by.’"

But even with the help of strangers, the boys could not be found.

Myers wound up calling 9-1-1.

“And the dispatcher was very nice and sent police and a fire truck and an ambulance and everyone was there. It was crazy,” Myers said.

To make it easier for the professionals to conduct the search, police ordered everyone to come out to the parking lot.

On the way out, Myers cellphone rang. It was Elaine Ivy.

“And she put us on Facetime and I said, ‘Yes, yes that’s them,’ and she told me where they were and they were about a mile away in Melrose,” Myers said.

“She was very out of breath and very excited,” Ivy said. “Screaming in the back ‘They found them!’”

So how did Ivy know Myer’s phone number?

Little did anyone know that Brandon has a silent ritual before bed.

“You know that every night I always practice Mom’s phone number," said Brandon.

Cox Media Group