Sure, there’s plenty on the agenda to occupy your time thinking about what’s going on in and around Boston these days, what with not having to expend a scintilla of emotional energy on watching baseball anymore. (I’m still watching. It’s just not as draining now that the Red Sox have departed.) There’s Occupy Boston, currently occupying the Rose Kennedy Greenway. There’s the solons in our state legislature focusing on whether to allow free drinks in our future casinos. There’s a new baby panda at the Franklin Park Zoo.
And then there’s the family who got lost in a corn maze in Danvers, and called 911 for a rescue.
The family, who shall remain nameless because the “victim” – which is how the Danvers po-po referred to their first-time caller – asked to remain so - thought it would be a fun idea to take their 3-week old baby, at dusk, to a corn maze.
Now, having a 3-week old in tow does give some level of exculpation to their calling 911, if you can get past the WTF question about the wisdom of bringing a 3-week old infant into a corn maze to begin with. Based on my limited but non-zero experience 
with corn mazes, corn mazes tend to have a lot of autumnal chaffy-kind of motes in the air. You know, the stuff that makes your nose itch if you’re a grownup, and which might do worse to your entire respiratory system if you’re, say, 3 weeks old. I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies, and I don’t know all that much more about the allergens floating around corn mazes. And yet… (Just sayin’.)
As corn mazes go, the Connors Farm one looks like a pretty interesting and complex one. Still, it doesn’t look like a ka-billion acre Archer Daniels Midland corn field occupying the entire land-mass of three counties in Iowa, either. And despite all those trees in the background, Danvers is not exactly rural-ia.
And yet, despite the rumor that the family was no more than 25 feet from the road, they were lost. Dusk set in, as did panic. And rather than a) call the owners of the corn maze to come get them; b) have someone (that would no doubt be the husband) flail through the corn rows - which are, in fact, a lot more permeable than, say, hedge rows – and forge a way to safety; or c) start shouting their lungs out to attract attention (too hurtful to the baby’s ears?); the stranded elected to d) dial 911.
“I don’t see anyone and I’m really scared, it’s really dark and we got a 3-week old baby with us,” a woman told the 911 operator.
As noted, having a 3-week old baby on board is a mitigating circumstance for what otherwise would be fairly numb-minded and infantile behavior. (Again, that’s if you can overlook them toting such a tiny one into a corn maze for starters.)Not to mention that this behavior aids and abets those who relish pointing out just what a nanny state we’ve become.
The call was placed about 6 p.m., one hour after the maze stopped letting people in. (I believe that the folks from Connors Farm have said that they let late-comers wander around for a while, and then do a walkthrough if everyone who walked in hasn’t wandered out, but this info isn’t in the article cited below.)
The Danvers police called in the dogs for this search and rescue. The police dispatcher stayed on the line during the tense 7 minutes and 22 seconds it took to effect the save. Seven+ minutes! Not exactly Little Jessica McClure in the well, or the Chilean miners, but might there not be a made-for-TV-movie out of this one. (“Nightmare at Corn Maze.”)
While the family nervously awaited rescue, the operator – now on the line with the husband, asked him to make sure his wife didn’t “freak out” and then:
…asked the man if he heard police dogs barking and told him repeatedly to yell “Hello K-9” to get the dogs’ attention.
“Hello K-9”? Is that some secret code that police dogs respond to? Or is it all pups? I’ll have to try this on my dog-nephew, Jack.
“Thank you so much,” the woman told the operator. “Never again …We thought this was fun. Instead it was a nightmare.”
Am I the only one who thinks that a call to the law office of James R. Sokolove is not in the making?
Some call it corn, I call it amazing!
Source: Boston.com.
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