Warning: This article contains references to child abuse that some readers may find disturbing.
A waitress saw something strange while serving a table and saved a child who was being abused.
At a Mrs. Potato restaurant in Orlando, Florida, USA in 2021, Flavaine Carvalho had just finished her shift and was waiting for her last table of the evening.
All sorts of things happened in the family restaurant, but the police arrived on the scene and arrested a mother and stepfather.
Carvalho took the order of a family consisting of a boy and his parents, even though they had told the waitress that he would eat at home.
The waiter looked at the boy, dressed in a hoodie, glasses and a face mask, and noticed a scratch between his eyes and a bruise on his temple.
After walking away from the table, Carvalho devised a cunning plan to get the boy’s attention.
She wrote a note saying, “Do you need help?” and secretly showed the message to the boy, without his parents knowing. He shook his head and replied.
“I knew he was scared,” Carvalho later admitted.
The note the waitress showed the boy. (X/@OrlandoPolice)
She kept insisting and made two more attempts to get his attention before he finally nodded. The waitress then called the owner of the restaurant to let her know that she had called the police to locate the boy’s parents. They arrived immediately and arrested the boy’s stepfather, Timothy Wilson II, on one count of third-degree child abuse, and his mother, Kristen Swann, on two counts of child abuse.
Later, a four-year-old girl was taken from the family by authorities, although she showed no signs of abuse.
After speaking with the boy, detectives learned that his parents had been depriving him of food as punishment, leaving him 20 pounds underweight.
They also discovered that he was covered in bruises and that his father had recently beaten him with a broomstick and a back scratcher.
The boy said he had once been hung upside down by his ankles from a door frame by his abusive stepfather and had also been tied in a disturbing manner to a furniture cart.
The waitress (center) was quick to rescue the boy and get help. (X/@Fox35Matt)
Detective Lawler stated: “To be honest with you, what this child went through was torture. There was no justification for it in any sphere of the world. I’m a mother and when I see what that 11-year-old went through, it shakes your soul.”
Then-Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon said Carvalho’s quick thinking saved the two children: “This could have been a murder situation if she had not intervened,
“The lesson we can learn from this is that we have to recognize that when we see something that is not right, we have to take action… This saved a child’s life,” he explained.
Rafaela Cabede, the owner of Mrs Potato, said she hopes Carvalho has inspired others to be more aware of signs of abuse: “We understand that this should encourage other people to say something if they see something.
“We know that when we see a situation that is wrong, we know what the right thing to do is. We know that the right thing to do is to speak out. But it takes more than just admitting it. It takes courage.”
