Missing Girl Found Safe In Mission Viejo

MISSION VIEJO, CA —Ava, a 3-year-old Mission Viejo girl, was reported missing from her home on Friday afternoon. She was last seen in the area of Golondrina and Riendas at just after 4:30 p.m., police say. She was found, unharmed, almost two hours later.

Reports that the girl had wandered from her home went out across social media. Deputies flying overhead in the sheriff department's Duke helicopter used loudspeakers to alert residents of the missing child from the air.

Neighbors responded by searching the area, and the creek and canyon below.

"So many people were willing to drop everything to help," resident Barb Thiese said on the Mission Viejo Police Services Facebook page. "Praise the Lord, she was found."

Police used all of their resources to locate the child, they said. After finding Ava safe, Duke alerted neighbors that she had been located, which was much appreciated by the searchers.

"You should have heard the cheers from everyone looking down by the creek path," Sylvia Rosenthal wrote on the Facebook page.