Ohio mom Krista Piper Grundey began to panic when she lost track of her 3-year-old daughter, Lily, in a crowded museum.
"My first instinct was to call out her name,” Grundey, 36, tells TODAY.com. Then she says she remembered watching a TikTok video about a mother who found herself in a similar situation.
“She said to shout out a description of what your child is wearing because that way people know what to look for,” Grundey says. “So I started yelling ‘Little girl, pink Minnie Mouse shirt!’ And then other parents joined in and were repeating, ‘Little girl, pink Minnie Mouse shirt!’”
Moments later, Lily was located safe and sound.
“I was in tears and Lily was just playing and completely oblivious to the fact that I was frantically searching for her,” Grundey recalls.
Later that day, Grundey shared the story on TikTok, where it racked up thousands of comments.
“I heard a mom doing that one day at a park. Kid was fine and was playing but people pointed her out quickly,” one person wrote.
Added another, “I saw one of a mom in a mall doing this and a guy in the upper level hears and yells ‘hey yo!’ we got a missing kid! *repeat description” found in 30sec.”
In 2020, children’s author Jess Martini went viral after she posted a PSA about ‘“looking loudly” to find a child in a public place.
“It’s going to sound like this: 'I’m looking for a boy, age 5, short brown hair, brown eyes, caucasian, red Nike T-shirt, black shorts, black shoes,’” Martini, a mother of three, explained in the clip. “Now you’ve got every single person who’s around looking for your child instead of just you.”
Martini also advised parents to dress their children in bright colors when they’re headed to a crowded venue.
“Once I was at a playspace and there were three brothers and they were all dressed in neon pink,” she said in follow-up TikTok video. “The only thing I could focus on was those brothers because they stood out so much.”