On Tuesday morning just as the sun came up, and Kelly Orndorff was making her morning coffee, an extraordinary event took place, one that proves animals are much smarter than humans give them credit for, and one that ended with the saving of a lost little girl.
Orndorff said the day started a little different from the get-go. Her eyes had popped open 15 minutes before her alarm sounded. She says she never gets up before her alarm goes off, but for some reason she woke up early this particular day. From then on the morning played out just as strange.
“I got up to get a cup of coffee and heard Ony (her cat) crying in the garage,” said Orndorff. This was also very strange, she added, considering Ony usually greets her most mornings at the window off the kitchen. There are some mornings she doesn’t even see him before heading to work at the Justice Center.
“I do leave my garage door open about ten inches, just in case he wants to get in, but he usually doesn’t,” said Orndorff, except on this particular day.
After Orndorff got her wits about her, still trying to wake up, she opened the door that lead to the garage off of her kitchen. It wasn’t a surprise that Ony was standing right there, as his crying is what summoned her, however, what caught the corner of her eye in the back of the garage when letting him in was, and it scared Orndorff so much that she went back inside and closed and locked the door.
“I saw something in the office chair that was in the corner of my garage, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It was dark in the garage and I was still half asleep. It looked like it was slumped over and had a lot of hair” said Orndorff, struggling to figure out what she saw. She said after thinking for a moment she came to the conclusion that what she must have seen was a large doll sitting in the chair, but how did it get there?
“I thought what would a doll be doing in my garage and who put it there?” said Orndorff.
The next step Orndorff took was to open her garage with the remote control and go out her back door to look in from another angle. When she could not see the chair from that position, she returned to the kitchen and opened the door once again, only this time it seemed as if the “doll” had moved to the other side of the chair.
“I really didn’t know what to think,” said Orndorff, who admits she was scared what was in her garage. She contimplated calling the police, but says she didn’t want to look silly if it turned out to be nothing. One more look proved to be quite the contrary, as the doll Orndorff first believed it was, began to move.
Orndorff knew almost immediately it wasn’t a doll at all, but a little girl who had been sleeping. Yes, a little girl snuggled up in her Dora the Explorer pajamas on Orndorff’s office chair in the garage.
“Am I seeing what I’m seeing?” wondered Orndorff. Yes in deed she was. It was a two-year-old little girl who had gotten out of her aunt’s home where she was visiting several houses down from Orndorff. When the toddler got out is still unclear, but Orndorff said she must have been there awhile because she was freezing cold. Orndorff quickly brought the little girl into the house and wrapped her with a thick blanket.
Orndorff said she contacted the police immediately upon finding out it wasn’t a doll at all. She said she asked the little girl while in the garage what she was doing there, and all she could make out was the word “kitty.” She then asked her when bringing her in how old she was, what her name was, and where she lived. The little girl gibbered her answers, as most two year olds do.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Orndorff, who held the little cold girl until the police arrived.
Russelville Police Officers told Orndorff when they arrived that they knew where the little girl belonged. When responding to Orndorff’s 911 call officers noticed people at a neighboring house outside in the yard. Apparently, according to the police, they had just woken up and noticed that the child was missing. According to officer Matt Humble, the family said the little girl has experienced sleep walking issues before. They weren’t sure how long she had been gone, but called 911 and began serching when they noticed.
Orndorff truly believes that her cat Ony and the little wandering child had meet up somewhere along the way, and she followed him into the garage. Orndorff’s house has a very long driveway, and she believes the little girl followed Ony to safety. She had to have followed the cat into the garage crawling under the 10 inch gap left for the cat.
“I can’t imagine what could have happen to her,” said Orndorff, mentioning the recent rains that have caused flooding in the subdivision. What could have happened if she had turned the other direction and ended up on ninth street?
“Ony crying was very unusual. He never cries. I now think he was letting me know she was in there,” said Orndorff, who is so glad that things turned out the way they did.
“I hope she will be okay, and I am glad Ony let me know where she was,” said Orndorff, adding that those who know Ony, know that he is a very special cat.
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