Estill police chief talks rescue of 6-year-old girl left behind on field trip, investigation continues

by Aaron Dixon

HAMPTON COUNTY, S.C. (WTOC) - A Hampton County family is thanking a police chief after he rescued a 6-year-old girl on Friday who was walking alone along a busy roadway trying to make it back to her elementary school.

What happened

Police say the child, a student at Varnville Elementary, fell asleep during a field trip to the Palmetto Theater in Hampton. When she woke up, investigators say her class had already left.

Investigators say the child then started walking back toward Varnville Elementary — a trip of more than two miles.

“You just react.”

Estill Police Chief Chauncey Solomon Sr. said he had just finished a meeting in Hampton and was driving back toward Estill when he saw the child walking along Elm Street, a four-lane road.

Solomon said the child was nearing a stretch where the sidewalk ended and would have had to cross the busy roadway.

He said he turned on his blue lights, turned his patrol car around, and picked her up, then contacted the Hampton Police Department.

“Just to see that happening at that moment, obviously, you just react, you just don’t think,” Solomon said. “It’s more than me being an officer — it’s more because I am a grandparent, so that kicked in. There’s a child here, a 6-year-old little, small child here, so I just reacted.”

Solomon said the girl told him she was trying to get back to her school after being left behind at the theater.

Where she was found

The child was rescued near the intersection of Elm Street and Fourth Street in Hampton — about an eight- to nine-minute walk from the Palmetto Theater and still roughly two miles from Varnville Elementary.

Police say the girl was safely returned to Varnville Elementary.

“I just thank God that I was there to be able to save this little girl,” Solomon Sr. said.

Questions remain about how the student was left behind and what safeguards were in place during the trip.

“We all have a job to do, and we must make sure we do it, especially when it comes to little lives like kids,” Solomon Sr. said. “We had to do what we are supposed to do and care for these kids.”