A 6-year-old special needs girl was found walking on the I-45 feeder road last week in Houston, Texas, after she was allegedly put in the wrong line after school.
Lantrip Elementary School student, Serenity Polk, was walking on the busy strip of road on Thursday when a homeless man noticed her by herself, according to FOX 26 Houston. The man recognized the girl was lost and reportedly called her school after seeing it was named on her shirt.
The girl's mother, Mercedes Polk, said her daughter, who is deaf in both ears, was crying and screaming by the time she was notified of her whereabouts.
"A homeless man that holds the sign right there on Cullen and I-45 found my daughter," Polk told FOX 26. "He contacted the school. The school went to go get her. She wouldn't get in the car with them. So the school contacted the police. She wouldn't get in the car with the police and that's when they called me. All that time I thought my daughter was in the school building."
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Polk arrived at the elementary school, which is in the Houston Independent School District, to pick up her daughter on Thursday when she learned she was missing.
"The teachers kept giving me excuses that they were looking for her within the school," Polk said. "They were saying she might be at the playground. She might be in the bathroom, but it was over an hour. So I started freaking out even more."
Serenity, who is a car rider, was mistakenly released from school as a walker and put in the wrong line.
"The walkers have a red badge. The car riders have white badges," Polk said. "I was thinking, 'I just lost my husband, now I'm about to lose my child.' I didn't know if she was raped, murdered, kidnapped, hit by a car."
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Polk said she was told her daughter ended up a mile away from the school on the busy I-45 feeder road.
The Houston Police Department said school officials told them a substitute teacher placed Serenity in the wrong line.
"My fears are this could happen to another child. My child could have died," Polk said.
Child Protective Services said it is investigating the incident.
