An Emergency and A Massive Kiddush Hashem, The Story of The Canarsie Park Search Through the Eyes of the Volunteers

by CrownHeights.info

“We need help, and we need it now!” – First Responding Shomrim Volunteer

It was in the early hours of Wednesday afternoon when the call came over the Flatbush Shomrim radio asking for volunteers to assist in Canarsie Park where a caller reported a child missing.

“I was walking in the park next door to my house when the call came over the Flatbush radio,” a Crown Heights Shomrim volunteer who was among the first Shomrim responders told CrownHeights.info. “Initially it came over as a missing 1-year-old and then was changed to a missing 6-year-old.”

Six-year-old Yosef Shapiro had been out on a trip to Canarsie Park with his day camp, spending the day playing with his friends and counselors in the sprawling park. Sometime during the trip, he got lost, wandering from the group and losing contact with any of the other campers or staff.

By 4:00pm, Yosef’s absence had been noticed. After franticly checking amongst the other bunks, buses, and staff, it became apparent that Yosef was nowhere to be found. Fear set in, 911 was called, with a call also being made to Flatbush Shomrim asking for help.

“Once we got there, we saw the size of the park,” said the Shomrim volunteer. “I turned around to the councilors and said, “you look very nervous, I would also be, but Hashem has never let me down.”

With that in mind, knowing that through thick and thin there is always hope, the search began.

Pulling In Every Available Resource

The large sprawling park on the edge of Canarsie is not small by any means, but the most important aspect of the park is its landscape. Easy access can be had to large sports areas, empty fields, and lightly wooded areas. Yet other areas of the park are harder to get to, including areas that are heavily wooded, covered in thick underbrush, marshland, and even a long stretch of beach along the Atlantic Ocean.

Realizing the enormity of the situation, a second call was put out to the police, appraising them of the severity of the situation as Shomrim divisions across New York City mobilized teams to the park.

From Flatbush, Boro Park, Crown Heights, Staten Island, Rockaway Nassau, and Williamsburg, Shomrim volunteers began arriving, spreading out across the park in the hopes of quickly locating the lost child.

Videos from the early hours of the search show as Shomrim divisions brought in their mobile commands and vehicles, sending out search parties to cover large areas and pooling their resources.

Meanwhile, the NYPD arrived with their own specialized units, bolstering a growing force searching franticly.

K-9 units began searching as NYPD aviation circled above, combing the open areas of the park and along the water’s edge.

Understanding that time was of the essence, Shomrim put out a call for additional manpower, bringing a veritable wave of volunteers from other organizations.

Volunteers from Hatzalah and Chaverim were bolstered by individuals who came offering to help, leading to a turnout estimated at more than 500 volunteers.

One Shomrim volunteer remarked at the turnout of not just men, but woman and entire families.

“There were groups of people coming out as families, parents and their kids,” he said. “As I was giving out the grids they were identifying themselves as “we are a family we will go together. It was amazing to see.”

The outpouring of support was not only in manpower, but also included offers of free food and drinks for the volunteers, specialized equipment, vehicles, and more.

The Achdus and Chessed of the community would not only get noticed, but would actually find itself center stage in news reports and the public’s view through the night and into the day after.

The Search

A missing person search such as this is not done as a single directional operation, but includes multiple levels and types of searches at the same time.

As some groups of volunteers were given specific grids, or areas of the park to search, others were given specific assignments to do.

One group of volunteers were assigned to go door to door, knocking on neighboring homes in search of video camera footage in case the missing child had left the park, while other groups searched the nearby streets.

Specialty units with equipment such as jet skis and ATV’s searched the beach, covering ground quickly while others beat their way slowly through thick underbrush, meticulously searched wooded areas, and combed open fields.

But as an NYPD chopper continued its flyovers, and the shadows lengthened, the volunteers began to face a narrowing window of opportunity.

With the onset of dark, two major hurdles were on the horizon, the dark of night and a massive thunderstorm.

Lightning and thunder would follow quickly with a downpour of rain that would destroy any scent for the dogs, wash away footprints, and make survival outdoors difficult.

Light towers were brought in, food was prepared, and rain jackets brought out, yet the search would not stop regardless of the weather.

For one of the Shomrim volunteers handing out grids to waiting volunteers, the onset of rain meant that his pool of hundreds of volunteers might very well “dry up.” But he was wrong

“As soon as the rain started I was expecting the crowd to get smaller, people are going to start running because they’re getting wet,” he said. “Almost nobody left! I was looking, I was sure that the crowd was slowly going to disburse as the heavy rain was coming down. But nobody blinked, everybody was like, “Just give us the grids, its raining we will get wet.”

Finding Yosef, With Divine Intervention

During the early hours of the search, the NYPD had called in their specialty units, including their K-9 dogs able to trace a person by their scent.

While many leads were being followed, and others crossed off the list, the dogs brought in an unlike tip that would ultimately lead to the discovery of the missing child.

One of the K-9’s caught the scent of the missing boy, leading the NYPD to a part of the park considered unpassable and incredibly hostile.

While at first the tip looked almost perfect, after looking into it, the police realized that it would be nearly impossible for little Yosef to actually have gotten inside.

Thick mud, fallen trees, fencing, and waist high vegetation would be a near impossible barrier, making it an unlikely prospect. While he may have come this way, it would be very unlikely that he would have actually entered the forrest.

Still, the police sent their helicopter buzzing overhead, and a boat to patrol the thick vegetation alongside the ocean with strong lights and equipment. The searches came back without a sign of Yosef, so the police believed he was not there.

One volunteer coordinating the search efforts was not satisfied, and despite the very real risks of the area, called for volunteers to enter the dangerous area.

Ten men, each equipped with reflective vests, radios and flashlights ultimately made the track into the wilderness.

As the weather worsened, the group of volunteers fought through the thick underbrush, fallen trees and mud to the beach, where they began their search efforts.

The group had been given specific instructions. They were to cover the thick and dangerous forest area along the beach, searching along the shoreline for Yosef.

One of the volunteers in the search party was from Crown Heights Hatzalah. He spoke to CrownHeights.info, sharing his experience and how they ultimately discovered Yosef in the marshy terrain.

“The area that we decided to go into, neither myself nor the other Crown Heights member, can explain why we went in on that particular spot,” he told CrownHeights.info.

As their group had been making their way along the beach, they had been searching for paths and clearings to navigate the thick underbrush and marshy land alongside the water. They would find a trail or clearing, foray in for a ways calling out for Yosef, before making their way back to the beach and onto another path or clearing.

At one small clearing, the party found their fist odd find. A makeshift grey tent, empty of people but with items still inside. Yet as there were no signs of Yosef there, they decided to press on to another location.

Just a few yards on after the clearing that held the tent, the leading volunteer decided for an inexplicable reason to force his way into a section of marshy forest totally overgrown and without a path. All together, three of the group made their way into that particular spot. Two were Crown Heights Hatzalah volunteers, the other a Hatzalah volunteer from Staten Island.

“Even though there was no clearing, there was no path, there was no way to get in without clamoring over trees and clearing brush, the leading person went in and I followed right behind, shining the flashlight over his head,” one of the Crown Heights Hatzalah volunteers told CrownHeights.info. “None of us can explain to each other why we decided to go in on that spot.”

At some point, it made no sense to keep going deeper, according to the volunteer, with the thick underbrush, trees, and marshy land making it almost impossible to continue.

“We kept going just a little bit further, a little bit further, until we were just about to turn around and say there is no clearing here, there is no nothing, it’s impossible to keep going.”

Suddenly, the volunteer heard a faint sound that could have been a child, which at first he thought was simply a sound traveling from over the water. After hearing it again, one of the volunteers began yelling out “Yosef, Yosef”, to which they heard a young voice reply “Yeah, Yeah.”

The group began following the sound of the voice, searching franticly, but at first they were not being able to locate the source of the voice. As they forced their way deeper through the underbrush, they began clearing as much of the tall plants as they could. Then suddenly, they found him.

Another Sign That We Are All Just Shluchim of Hashem

Once the Hatzalah volunteers ascertained that the boy was in fact Yosef Shapiro, and not in any danger, one Crown Heights Hatzalah volunteer got on his radio and notified the Hatzalah dispatcher that they had found him.

“CH-91 to H Base, we have the child he is OK.” These words sounded across the world as hundreds of volunteers and tens of thousands of Jewish people worldwide waited with baited breath. It would surge through hundreds of radios, be played tens of thousands of times on WhatsApp, and be remembered for many years to come.

But what people didn’t hear was that the radio used to make transmission had been used for its final time. Water damage and a broken antenna had taken its toll and the radio died during the transmission.

“After ensuring that the kid was ok, I immediately picked up the radio and notified the dispatcher,” the Hatzalah volunteer said. “A detail you are not aware of is that I was actually trying to say more. My radio though was so damaged from water and the antenna was cracked and split from trees, that it wasn’t working properly. The radio kicked in enough for the base to hear me and say “We have the child, he is OK”, and the whole radio died and wouldn’t work.”

“The eibeshter just wanted me to be able to give the mother that relief, and know that the gezeira was turned over and that her son was coming back to her,” he said. “After that, the radio went back to being dead.”

In the eyes of the volunteers who found him, it was a sign. “I know that we were just shluchim, and it was siyata dishmaya completely,” he said

A Massive Kiddush Hashem

While all eyes were on the search in the park, the news and volunteer response did not go unnoticed.

Neighbors, completely shocked at the communities response to a single missing child looked on in awe as hundreds of volunteers heeded the call for help. In their view, this was just one single community. There was no separation by neighborhood, no political motivations, and an absolute single minded drive. For everyone watching, there was just a Jewish child missing, and the entire Jewish community searching.

News outlets rushing to the scene found hundreds of ready volunteers all with the same simple message, repeated over and over, we are here to help.

From the overawed neighbors, appreciative police officers, and even the Mayor of New York City, there was no question that the outpouring of support was a massive Kiddush Hashem.

(This article is based on the first hand accounts of the volunteers that were directly involved in the search, and those in the party that found Yosef.)