I had something similar happen a few years ago. We still lived in Memphis at the time and went to the Memphis Zoo during Spring Break with some friends. We had memberships and went often, but my older boys were in 1st grade and my trio in pre-K, so we didn't go as often. We were toward the back of the zoo, working our way back to the front, when it became really crowded. We were walking along this one area in the zoo by the zebras and giraffes that gets more narrow than other areas, when we hit this large crowd walking toward us. The park hadn't been crowded at all that day and out of nowhere came this crowd walking through that filled up the whole area.

Some of these people were really scary. One guy was talking about drugs, apparently amusing himself and laughing about his comments. I remember one of my older sons looking at him and the man saying something to him. I am doing head counts all over the place and we work our way to the end of the giraffes where the space opens back up and there are three path options. My friends and I are all counting kids and we have them all except for my one son that I had just seen a few seconds prior when that one man spoke to him. The crowd walking against us was also through the other end, so that area was now pretty open and I can't find him behind us. There are path options to take at this point, so I walk a bit up each one, calling for him thinking he might be looking for us on one of those, but I don't see him. I call his name over and over. I see a tram operator over to the side, stopped, so I tell him I have a missing child. I have never seen such idiotic dolts in my entire life. I am calm, but obviously worried while this idiot acts like he has no idea what he should do. I am telling him "you have a radio. I have told you exactly what my child is wearing."(It was St. Patrick's Day and my son had on a very bright green shirt with a whole black and white chess board printed on the back and bright yellow Disney crocs. He wouldn't be difficult to spot.) "I want you to make sure no child is allowed to leave the zoo exit fitting his description and announce it on your employee radio so other employees will know to be on the look-out for this kid." While he continues to do nothing but look baffled and confused I plan to take on of the paths back to the front, but am worried he is on one of the other paths, while my friends keep my other kids and stay put in case he returns. About 5 minutes later a Hispanic lady that spoke very little English and worked as some type of cleaning person there saw me talking to another idiot zoo worker I came upon. This lady understood my son's description and managed to convey to me she knew where my son was. She took me by a back shortcut to the main office and there sat my son. He had only been there a minute or two and the cleaning lady had just been there. Apparently, he had gotten to the clearing at the end of the giraffes before us, which is where I knew in my gut he would know to wait for me. However, a lady saw him immediately and asked him if he was lost. Instead of waiting a minute to see if his Mom came through the crowd, she took him to the office. He told me he thought he heard me call his name when they were walking, but she took him to the office anyway, so he must have been barely out of sight when I made it through. This child is my most mature child. He is the second Mommy in the house. He is very responsible and also very obedient. I really do appreciate the lady trying to help, but what really scared me was I asked him if he would have gone with her had she tried to walk out the gate with him instead of going into the office, which is right before the gate, and he said yes, he would have. I was chilled when he said yes. We had always talked about not walking off with people to our kids, but we probably hadn't done it recently at that time. It is obvious we need to talk about it all the time, not to scare them, but to keep the plan fresh in their minds. It needs to be drilled in them every time we go someplace.

After that, we always made a plan when we went someplace, for example, when we went to Disney, we pointed out who the castmembers were and what they looked like. They were specifically told not to ask anyone but them for help.

Apparently, the reason for the big crowd that day was it was the free afternoon for the public day at the zoo. It had started while we were still there and we didn't know about it. The Memphis Zoo ended up on the news that night for allowing too many people in that afternoon and being over the fire capacity.

A child locator device is probably too much. My best advice is to make sure you have a plan with every outing and go over it with them each time. And remember that your most obedient child is actually the one most at risk because they would most likely do what any adult told them to do. If that nice, well meaning lady hadn't taken my son from that spot, he would have been exactly where I would have expected him to be waiting for me if he had gotten ahead of me in that crowd. I can tell you he was so embarrassed by that, he never has had it happen again and he is now 10.

Cindy
Paul and Andrew
Kristen, Rachel and Michael