A story of a missing child got its happy ending after a journalist who was sent to cover the story heard the toddler cry “mamma.”
21-month-old Nicola Tanturli went missing from his home in Florence, Italy and was nowhere to be found. The two-day extensive search involved a huge number of people, more than 1,000, including police, fire, and airplane rescuers.
Nicola Tanturli was found near his home in Tuscany, Italy, when a TV journalist heard him crying “mamma” https://t.co/11U3kQhNzB
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 23, 2021
Journalist Giuseppe Di Tommaso from the RAI state television was supposed to cover the story. He, like everyone else, was hoping for a positive outcome and was extremely worried for the child. As he was walking through the forest where Nicola was suspected to have wandered, Giuseppe heard someone saying “mamma” from a distance.
At first, he wasn’t certain he was hearing right, so he decided to starts yelling “mamma” himself so that he could be sure it was a person speaking back.
“I started to yell, ‘Nicola’, to understand if it could be the child. I heard ‘mamma’,” he said, as reported by Sky News.
“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.”
😮 Absolutely amazing!
— Darren Tuer (@darrentuer) June 23, 2021
Nicola was on the other side of the ravine, in a hard-to-reach area, so Giuseppe was quick to alert two police officers of his discovery. The officers, however, weren’t convinced the noise could be coming from the missing toddler, but they went down the ravine to check. At that moment, Nicola’s little head pooped out of the grass. It was a moment to remember and a huge relief for the officers and the journalist.
“It was a tremendous joy to bring him back to his mother’s arms,” Commander Ciccarelli who reached Nicola told Sky News.
We are so happy the toddler is finally home with his family.