Family cuts holiday short after 'scary' find in pram: 'They wanted our girls'
A family of four have been forced to cut their holiday short after an incident with an Airtag left them shaken.
Following their October wedding, Susan O’Neill, her husband and their two young girls were on a “family moon” in Santa Susanna, an hour north east of Barcelona, when the “scary” incident occurred. By the third night of their trip, they were desperate to flee home to Scotland.
“I received a safety alert to make me aware an AirTag was tracking our location. Find My app was able to show us that someone was tracking us and had been the full day!” the mum from Edinburgh wrote on Facebook.
Mum says AirTag was planted in bid to grab her children
Ms O’Neill believes the tracking device had been planted in the family’s belongings.
“A couple of hours prior to this notification my husband was taking my purse out of the back of my daughter’s pram and something fell out, which sounded like the noise of a coin falling on the floor. We did not think anything of this at the time but now we believe this was the AirTag someone placed in the pram,” she explained.
The young family reported the incident to their hotel reception, who called the Spanish police, but officers said they couldn't do much unless they had the AirTag.
“Down at the reception, the Find My app said the AirTag was not in close proximity but when we went up to the floor our hotel room was on it said it was,” Ms O’Neill wrote online. “The police still could not do anything and wanted me to get in a taxi on my own to another town in Spain to make the report as they couldn’t make one.”
The mother, whose daughters are aged 23 months and five-years-old, went on to explain why they may have been targeted. “They [the police] believe this was someone planning a theft attack on us but we believe different. We believe they were wanting our two young blonde girls!” she said.
'Don't let kids out of sight'
“I have never felt so scared in my entire life! We immediately booked flights to return home the following morning. No way was I risking anything happening to our girls,” Ms O’Neill wrote on Facebook. “You hear about these things happening on social media but you never ever think it will happen to yourself.”
Ms O’Neill added that she wasn’t going to post about her story, but wants people to be more vigilant.
“Please just be aware of everything around you and don’t let your kids out of your sight, especially in another country. [It was] so scary, [I] am a mess,” she added. “[There are] so many horrible minded people out there.”
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Friends 'relieved' family home safe
After sharing her story online, many friends said they were relieved the family made it home safely.
“OMG Susan, I am so glad you’re all safe,” one person wrote. “Like you say, you can’t trust anyone.”
“What a fright!” another person said. While another shared her own story. “I remember when my girls were ages with your wee ones,” she wrote. “A Greek woman tried to befriend my girls. Thankfully my mum was with them.”
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