CINCINNATI — We were there as a Cincinnati mother learned her missing 13-year-old daughter had been found safe.
Montoya Gentry said her daughter, Monae, wandered off Wednesday afternoon. She alerted police, neighbors and her community. Police sent out an alert that night notifying the public that the teen, who had been diagnosed with short-term memory loss, epilepsy, ADHD and functional neurological disorder, was missing in the Western Hills area.
"Every tracking thing that I bought, somehow, just didn't make it out of the house. I try to tell her to keep things on, she doesn't like a lot of things on all the time, she'll strip it off," Gentry said.
Gentry, was speaking with us on Thursday morning when we got the news that police found her daughter.
"I just smiled, I was happy, because I was so scared," Gentry said.
Watch to see the mother's emotional reaction when she heard her daughter was found safe:
She told us she learned that a bus driver found her daughter in downtown Cincinnati. Her daughter was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital, and was wearing shoes given to her by a stranger.
"Thank you to whomever," Gentry said.
Even in her joy and relief for her daughter being home safe, Gentry shared that she's still left with frustration.
"They need to do some training within our city, with our law enforcement, within our EMTs, and I'm not taking away from the good people, but, overall, there needs to be some training done there," Gentry said.
We reached out to the Cincinnati police to see if we could get answers to some of Gentry's concerns and asked about training for missing children, and are waiting for a response.
Gentry shared about the troubles her daughter has to deal with due to her disabilities and how she wants to raise awareness of what Monae and others go through.
"Her size, how she looks, she's ignored," Gentry said.
She said she's run into issues where people may not take her daughter's disabilities seriously, and even said people have thought Monae was faking it.
"People are not always treated as they should be," Gentry said.
But Gentry shared with us the gratitude for neighbors, community members and even strangers who did what they could to make sure her daughter was found.
"I did see an overwhelming response last night, which I'm so grateful for," said Gentry.
