BARTLETT, Tenn. — Police say a missing 11-year-old girl was found in a storm drain Sunday after a concerned resident heard her cries for help.
Bartlett Police later released drone footage of the child rescue on Facebook.
Officers were called to the 6200 block of Skyview Circle about an hour after Isabella Jackson was reported missing after a man there said he heard a young child yelling from beneath their driveway.
David Creech lives next to the house on Skyview Circle. He said relatives were cleaning out his neighbor’s house Sunday morning, which is likely why they were outside and heard the girl.
“I thought it was a blessing that someone heard her,” said Creech.


According to a Bartlett Police report, when officers arrived, they heard Isabella screaming that she was stuck inside the street’s sewer grate.
Once they removed the grate, they saw a small underground pipe and realized Isabella was inside the line and could not move. Police said Officer Jennifer Willoughby was able to crawl through the pipe and reach Isabella, who was about 30 yards away.
Officer Willoughby calmed the girl down and told her to lie flat on her stomach and keep her head above the water to free herself. Willoughby crawled on her belly backward and told Isabella to hold her hand and crawl toward the open grate.
In the Bartlett Police Department’s drone footage, you can see Officer Willoughby come out of the storm drain with Isabella.
Creech said the young girl’s rescue happened a street away from where neighbors first heard her cries for help. He’s glad there was a happy ending.
“It seemed like it was the talk of the neighborhood and Bartlett, he said.
Bartlett Police have not said where the young child entered the drainage system.