Rae-Leigh Bradbury was eight-weeks-old when the first successful AMBER Alert was issued after she was taken by her babysitter in Arlington, Texas. She was found unharmed 13 hours later and her abductor served ten years in prison.
“That was the hardest 13 hours of my life ever,” said her mother Patricia A. Sokolowski. “The (detectives) came to me at about midnight and said ‘we’re going to activate an AMBER Alert. We haven’t used it, it’s the first time. We want it to work.’”
The emergency response system was put in place two years earlier after the disappearance of Amber Hagerman. Bradbury was given the Hope Award by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) on May 25. She says her experience inspired her to intern for NCMEC in Austin, Texas.
“There are kids right now not knowing where their parents are. I just can’t imagine wondering, ‘Where’s my mom? Where’s my dad?’” Bradbury said.