Shivamogga: A 3-year old girl child temporarily went missing after she fell out of a moving vehicle in the Agumbe Ghats in the Teerthahalli taluk of the Shivamogga district on Friday, January 31.

The girl, along with 11 other people from three different families, was returning from a tour of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, when the incident occurred. She, having had a miraculous escape after falling, was found after a frantic 30-minute search.

It is learnt that the family had fallen asleep when the child fell out of the vehicle as it was navigating a hairpin curve in the ghats. They did not realise she was missing till they had travelled for another 20 kms.

The incident came to light only when one of the passengers noticed that the child was not in her seat next to the door. The driver then noticed the unsecured door latch and deduced that the child might have fallen out of the vehicle.

Binu and Lucy, the child’s parents and residents of N R Pura of the Chikkamagaluru district, along with the rest of the family, started frantically looking for the child along the road. At the Agumbe post, they found out from a forest guard that a missing child was found and that it had been handed over to the Agumbe police station.

It turns out that an advocate, who was just minutes behind the girl’s family’s vehicle, spotted her along the road. He picked her up and handed her over to the police.

Luckily, the child had suffered only minor injuries from the fall. Her injuries were treated and then handed over to her parents.

It is not yet known how the girl fell out of the vehicle but the working theory is that the child might have accidentally unlocked the door as she was holding on to the latch on the bumpy ghat roads.

No complaint has been filed by the police.