Teen rescued after making a hand gesture she learned from TikTok to signal for help

RadishRose

RadishRose

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This graphic created by the Canadian Women's Foundation shows a hand signal for help.

(CNN)A missing teenager from North Carolina was rescued by Kentucky police after she signaled for help by using a hand gesture known on TikTok to represent violence at home, according to police.

The 16-year-old from Asheville, North Carolina, was reported missing by her parents on Tuesday, according to the Laurel County Sheriff's Office in Kentucky. On Thursday, a motorist in Kentucky called 911 to report seeing a girl in distress in a vehicle on the interstate.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/07/us/missing-teen-hand-gesture-asheville-trnd/index.html
 

I was watching something on youtube a while back, and a young girl on a plane kept flashing that sign at a flight attendant. The stewardess recognized it as a plea for help and alerted the pilot. Police were waiting when the wheels hit the runway and the trafficked child was rescued.

Perhaps they should teach that to kids in school...
 

I was once involved teaching a protective behaviours course to teenaged girls and the course was adaptable for younger children. This gesture would have been very valuable if included.

I am now on a management committee for our church's long day care centre and I am trying to think how something like this could be included in their program, especially in the preparing for school component.

I will follow this up.

Edit - I have been searching for resources and have found this site.
I'm ordering a couple of books for my grand daughter to use with her little boy.

Protective Behaviours provides child protection training resources (protective-behaviours.org.au)
 
Last edited:
palides2021 said:
I read that news article and was amazed that the other person who helped the teenager knew what to do. If it were me and the teenager did that, I would have thought they were pointing at something or waving to me. I had no clue. Now I know better. Glad they caught the culprit.
Click to expand...
One thing I learned when I was taking teens on bush walks and camps was that distress signals can be any visual signal in threes. For example, three fires in a line - smokey by day and burning brightly by night. If a fire is out of the question, then a row of three brightly coloured (red/orange) items that can be seen from the air will help rescuers find you.

With the hand gesture, if it is flashed three times then repeated at intervals, the gesture will be taken as a call for help by some people, even if they haven't seen it before.
 

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