By Cliff Radel • cradel@enquirer.com • September 16, 2009
MADEIRA - Late one night, Mathew Cook decided to fetch his dog, Potter.
His plan had four flaws: 1. Potter, a Lab-Golden Retriever mix, sat 3.7 miles away in Madeira; 2. Mathew was spending the night in Madison Place with his older brother and sister-in-law; 3. Mathew is eight years old; 4. He has Down's syndrome.
But, he went anyway. And that's how he met his guardian angel, a 30-year-old cake decorator named Erin Wolfe.
Until help arrived, she watched over him for the length of his one-hour, two-mile trek. She followed him along heavily traveled, unlit streets with no sidewalks and plenty of weeds taller than a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, eight-year-old boy.
"It took me a minute to catch up to him," Wolfe remembered. "He was hoofing it down the street." He was dressed for a walk, shorts, T-shirt, red-and-black Crocs. She was not.
Wolfe was barefoot. Before she took off after Mathew, she had been sitting on her front porch, relaxing with her sister-in-law. They were enjoying the stillness of a late summer night. Inside the red-brick home she shares with her husband, Robert, their 2½-year-old son, Raspberry, was fast asleep.
"We almost went in the backyard and built a fire," Wolfe said. As she spoke, she sat on her front porch. Her bare feet touched a chalk drawing by her son. He had drawn a heart, an appropriate sign at the house of a guardian angel. Recalling her meeting with Mathew, she added: "It was a last-minute thing to sit out here on the front porch." Lucky for Mathew.
At first, a passing motorist tried to stop him. "Where are you going little boy?" she asked from her car. "Home," he said. "To get Potter." Off he went. The motorist went on. Wolfe got off the porch. She didn't think she would be gone long. So, she left her cell phone behind.
She asked Mathew where he lived. Not stopping, he replied: "Got to get Potter." Mathew and Potter are pals. They sit on their front porch in Madeira after Mathew comes home from school. He's a second-grader at Madeira Elementary. Mathew likes to rub Potter's ears. He whispers "good dog," into the furry flaps on the side of his pal's head.
The 100-pound dog outweighs him by 50 pounds and is trained to help children with Down's syndrome. "If Mathew melts down," said his mom, Mary Ramirez Cook, "Potter's trained to calm him." If Mathew tries to run away, Potter knows how to put on the brakes. The four-legged protector wasn't with his master on the night Mathew took off for home. The little boy's sister-in-law is allergic to dogs.
Mathew's brother and sister-in-law went to bed early that night. Her cell phone rang at around 11:30 p.m. She awoke to find Mathew missing. Her husband called 911. By then, Mathew was long gone - with Wolfe in pursuit and both of them in danger.
"When he turned the corner to go onto Plainville Road," Wolfe remembered, "he was in the middle of the street." She directed him onto the sidewalk. "I didn't want to grab him," she said, "for fear of him freaking out" and darting into the path of an on-coming car. They ran out of sidewalk before busy Plainville Road turned into Camargo Road. But, Mathew kept running.
"Plainville's real dark," Wolfe said. "No street lights and we're running along the wrong side of the road." So, she coaxed him to the side of the street facing southbound traffic. While playing guardian angel, she tried to flag down on-coming cars. "About 10 to 15 passed," she said. None stopped. But each car veered out of their way.
Finally, one car slowed. The driver asked what was wrong. Wolfe told him. He said his name was Ben and called 911. By this time, five police departments were searching for Mathew. "Then he turn around and followed us with his hazard lights on," Wolfe said.
"I never did get his last name," she added. "But I was grateful that Ben showed up. He sure made me feel a lot safer on that dark road." She was wearing a dark blue top and a long, black skirt. "I was hoping my pale skin would reflect on something," Wolfe said as she brushed a stray strand of flaxen hair from her face.
Mathew's jaunt ended with a twist of fate. A van slowed by the side of the road. The door opened. Mathew hopped inside and sat on a woman's lap. "He knew the woman," Wolfe said. "He sat there until the cops arrived."
Two days after the happy ending, two moms met. Mary Ramirez Cook gave Erin Wolfe flowers and a gift card. "Nothing I could ever afford to give you, no words I could ever say," she told Wolfe, "could ever repay you for what you did." Wolfe thanked her, gave her a hug and told her no gifts were necessary.
"I'm very shy," said the woman whose shyness extends to declining requests to pose for photos. "I don't need any recognition. I was just following a little kid and making sure he got home OK." Mathew's mom thinks Wolfe is being too modest.
"I always thought my son was protected by a guardian angel," Cook said. "Now, I know there's one and her name is Erin."
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