NEW ORLEANS. In a remarkable story of survival, a 1-year-old “miracle baby” was found crawling along a Louisiana roadside two days after his 4-year-old brother was discovered dead and their mother was arrested in Mississippi.
Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Gary “Stitch” Guillory reported that the baby, despite numerous bug bites, was in good condition. The harrowing events unfolded after the body of the 4-year-old was found in a lake behind an Interstate 10 welcome center near the Texas state line on Monday.
“Thank God that trucker saw him,” Sheriff Guillory said emotionally during a news conference in Lake Charles, approximately 200 miles west of New Orleans.
The deceased child, whose autopsy results are pending, had last been seen on Saturday with his mother, Aaliyah Jack, 25, of Lake Charles, and the 1-year-old. Fearing the worst, authorities were preparing to search the water where the 4-year-old’s body was discovered when they received a critical call.
A truck driver, who spotted the baby crawling along the roadside, dialed 911, leading to the baby’s rescue. “We look at this 1-year-old as our miracle baby because he was still alive,” a visibly moved Guillory stated.
The rescue was complicated by Hurricane Beryl, which had struck east Texas early Monday, bringing bands of heavy rain and high wind gusts to the area.
An alert was issued for Jack on Monday night, and a Louisiana judge subsequently issued a warrant for her arrest. She was apprehended in Meridian, Mississippi, over 350 miles from where her children were found. The Meridian Police Department took her into custody without the 1-year-old, prompting an ongoing search until the trucker’s call.
“When deputies arrived, they were able to positively identify the child as the missing 1-year-old,” according to the sheriff’s office.
Jack is facing charges of failure to report a missing child and is expected to be extradited to Louisiana. Her bond has been set at $300,000.
Kayla Vincent, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, mentioned that no additional charges were pending as of Wednesday afternoon and that the investigation continues.
Currently, online booking records are unavailable, and it remains unclear if Jack has legal representation to comment on her behalf.
The community is left in shock and relief over the “miracle baby” who survived such dire conditions and was brought to safety thanks to a vigilant truck driver.
Gary P Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
