She had escaped from nursery. I am actually feeling a panic attack coming on as i write this so i'll try to convey what I have been told happened.
At around 11.30 she was sitting on the knee of a staff member. At that point it was time for the older 'nursery proper' (as opposed to the daycare section which she is a part of, as she's only 2.6) children to go home. Mothers arrived and somehow in the hubbub dd managed to get passed the nursery nurse who was on the door,down the steps, out of a disabled access (push button) door, through the car-park, out of the gate and into the street.
At around 11.40 she was found by two passers by (a man and a woman) who asked another passer by if she was her child. She said no, so the woman in the couple took dd into a local shop to see if she had escaped from there. When she was told 'no' she took her back to the car and phoned the police. After doing this she took her to the nursery.
I arrived at 11.50 (due to pick her up at 12 but arrived early). The woman who found her was talking very angrily to the nursery staff as i walked in, but at this stage i didn't know who she was or what had happened. One of the members of staff said 'X is over there' pointing to the wendy house. I looked inside and saw dd's hair was wet. I commented on this and it was only then that the nursery manager told me what had happened.
We were then joined by the woman who had found dd who told me how she had found her and what she had done. She advised the police were on their way. Nursery manager very apologetic, made me a cup of tea. I just felt utterly numb, I couldn't really react. I still can't believe this has happened.
The police arrived at about 12.10 and nursery manager and I went into a separate room to talk to them. They took some details from me, our names and addresses and asked nursery manager what had happened. They said they were just glad she had been found and didn't consider it a criminal investigation and that it was now up to the nursery to conduct their own internal investigation. I said 'well do you have the name of the people who found her' because the woman i had met had left by this point. and they were a bit taken aback by this and said 'well no. do you have it?' to the manager. She said no. They then radioed to get the name and address although they said they couldn't give it to me.
I said i didn't want it anyway, i just wanted to make sure they had it for their records.
I'm sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense, i'm having trouble keeping it together right now. I still can't believe this happened and needed to share it. Hopefully lessons can be learned from this.
Part of me is just so thankful nothing worse happened and that she's safe at home. But then another part of me thinks 'what the fuck? why are you thankful? this should never have happened in the first place'