Found Girls Amazing Journey

A Flushing girl who had been missing since September 6 was reunited with her family on September 12 after what may have been an incredible experience. Fourteen-year-old Giovanna Durand is back at school after an ordeal spanning two states and six days.
"Id say were very lucky," said Giovannas mother, Diana Montalto, at a press conference on Monday.
The day she disappeared, Giovanna had gone with her brother Kyle, 16, to ride their bikes at Kissena Park. Giovanna told Kyle that she needed to pick something up from the house and rode off, leaving Kyle waiting at the corner of Kissena Boulevard and Booth Memorial Avenue. When his sister didnt return, he and Montalto searched the park and, finally, called the police.
Meanwhile, the young girl began a walk that took her from Queens to Union Township in New Jersey, where the family has friends. She left her bike securely chained before walking over bridges to get to a seaport where she assisted during the aftermath of a boating accident on Sunday. There, she was interviewed by Channel 4 News and Radio 880. On September 11, a woman found the girl at a bus stop and brought her to a police station.
"We dont know who she is," said Montalto of the good samaritan. "She didnt leave a name. Id really like to thank her."
Giovanna was taken to a hospital in Summit, New Jersey where she spent the night before being reunited with her family.
"Her feet were swollen, she had some scratches on her legs and she was dehydrated, but otherwise she was in good health," her mother said.
But everything didnt go smoothly for Giovanna on her trek. She told her mother that the scratches on her legs happened when she accepted a bet to climb a tree for a dollar. She spent the nights in parks and fast food bathrooms, and she encountered an individual or group who stole the small amount of money she had been carrying, as well as her watch.
Throughout the search for the missing girl, which included assistance from Sanitation Department workers who posted missing person posters through the neighborhood, police did not suspect foul play and thus did not utilize the Amber Alert system.
"There are very specific criteria that have to be met to put out an Amber Alert," said Councilman John Liu, who organized the press conference. "We didnt want to second guess the system."
Even so, Montalto expressed frustration with the first wave of the investigation that surrounded her daughters disappearance. She called the second group of detectives professional and suggested that Giovanna might have been found sooner if the police had acted faster.
Currently, Giovanna has started eighth grade at St. Anns School and her family is not pushing her to explain her actions. They are letting her relax before she sees a therapist, who will do the questioning. Giovannas parents and siblings are just glad to have her home, and, according to her mother, Giovanna is more than a little embarrassed that her family involved the media.
At the press conference, Montalto thanked the media, Councilman John Liu and the officers at the 109th Precinct.
"We werent sleeping or eating all those days," she said. "You see it on TV and I was on the other side. Its an awful place to be.