Bus Driver Finds 2-Year-Old Wandering Barefoot In North Tulsa Intersection

A Tulsa man says he found a 2-year-old boy wandering barefoot in the middle of an intersection around 5 a.m. Thursday.

The little boy was found near the intersection of Mohawk and Peoria by a Tulsa bus driver on his way into work.

The boy wasn't hurt, but his home is a quarter of a mile away.

His mother said this isn't the first time her son has taken off.

Jessica LeBeau said, on most mornings, her 2-year-old son, Blaze, will crawl in bed with her. She knew something was wrong when she woke up around a bit before 8 a.m. and he wasn't there.

"I looked in his playpen and I was like, 'Blaze?'" LeBeau said. "And then I ran around the house yelling his name in all the rooms, I run out back, I run out front, and I start running up and down the street, 'Blaze, Blaze.'"

LeBeau said when she couldn't find him, she called police.

"I guess I was just zonked out, I didn't hear him or anything," she said.

LeBeau said her son must have left the home sometime after 1 a.m., when she last checked on him before going to bed. She said he went down Kenosha and then a quarter of a mile to the Gilcrease Expressway, near the corner of Peoria and Mohawk, an area that's not very well lit and has a series of storm drains, not to mention the traffic.

"I'm glad he didn't get ran over, didn't get kidnapped, the things that could have happened," LeBeau said.

"I was in shock just to see a little boy out in the middle of the road," Dennis Jeter said.

Jeter called police around 4:45 a.m.

"He was just wandering around out in the center lane," he said.

As a Tulsa bus driver, he's seen a lot of things, but finding a little boy without any shoes, and in wet pants, has left an impression on him.

"He literally put his arms out for me to pick him up," Jeter said. "Then he started crying and then he had me crying, too."

LeBeau said her son is very active, and knows how to unlock doors.

She said her family had to put deadbolt locks on the doors in their previous home, after she found her son in the backyard one morning.

"I guess he hit a growth spurt, so he learned to unbolt the doors this morning," LeBeau said. "I'm just glad he's safe."

LeBeau told us Thursday afternoon that DHS notified she would get her son back later in the evening.