It only took seconds for six-year-old Ava to dash away, says her father, Brendan Edmonds "Ava put her shoes on to come out the back door, but I was going to mow the lawn with the ride-on. Her mum was just putting a load of washing on. So I said, 'No, darling, wait until I've done the lawns, and then you can come out.' A few seconds later, I heard the front door. So I ran out to the front, and she was already gone - just like that."

CCTV footage later showed Ava running like she was in a race. As Brendan explains, "She's never run, but I reckon, in the CCTV, she was running like she was in the Olympics, so to speak."

What unfolded on Monday morning, September 23, was a heart-stopping search, as hundreds of locals from Glossodia and beyond joined forces with emergency services to find her.

Neighbour Michelle Rampling sounded the alarm on social media. "She was the first one to hear my partner come out. She didn’t give up. She was out here 10 minutes after Ava had gone missing and stayed with my partner right through to the end," Brendan said. "She was the one who thought of checking the CCTV cameras, and that gave us a direction to search."

Michelle immediately posted on social media.  It was the type of post no one wants to read, but it rallied the volunteer searchers. “I said to [Lisa], ‘Do you have the Glossvegas page?’ She said ‘no,’ so I immediately put it out there. The response was amazing,” Michelle told the Hawkesbury Post.

That afternoon, Michelle posted a desperate plea on the Glossvegas Facebook page: "There had been a little autistic girl that has gone missing on Wattle Crescent. She is six years old, sandy blonde hair, wearing a t-shirt and nappy. She has been missing for about 20 minutes. Please can everyone keep an eye out for her - the police have been called. It's my neighbour's little girl. Thank you."

The community responded in force. Brendan estimates that between 200 to 300 local volunteers joined the search, though police put the number closer to 100. 

The overwhelming support gave Brendan hope that Ava would be found. "After the one-hour mark, I was getting really, really worried. We called the police, obviously, but I only had two eyes. I was thinking it was like finding a needle in a haystack. But as I saw more and more people coming out, I got so much more confident that she was going to be found."

Five hours after she went missing, Ava was found by two local men, Charles Xiberras and his cousin Luke, who had travelled from Grose View to join the search. Coincidentally, one of the men has a child with autism, while the other has a newborn also named Ava. Brendan was full of praise for the men who helped find his daughter.

In an interview with Seven News, Charles Xiberras said: "I felt helpless, hearing it on the radio and the news, so I came out with my cousin, Luke. We were trying to work out what to do, and as we were working it out, we heard plovers swooping down at a little girl. We thought maybe it was someone who lives on the property, but as we got closer, we realised it was actually her."

Having only moved to Glossodia with his partner Lisa in July,, Brendan said they were still getting to know the neighbourhood. He knew no one "from a bar of soap" and hadn't even met the neighbours yet.   

"It's hard to describe in words, but the feeling and the support that I received in our time of need, in our new community of Glossodia - the love, the effort. Thank you. I'm proud to say that I've moved into Glossodia," Brendan tld the Hawkesbury Post.

He also expressed his gratitude to emergency services. "I want to thank the emergency services like the SES and the RFS, but in particular, the four Hawkesbury detectives on the case. There was a lady and three gentlemen, and they were so supportive and like rocks with us. It was unbelievable how good they were with us." But it’s also the local community - and especially Michelle - that Brendan will never forget. 

“People I’d never even met before were out there looking for Ava like she was their own daughter," he says. "I’ll never forget that. We’re so lucky to be here."

For Michelle, the experience left her humbled by the outpouring of support. However, she remains modest about her role in the search. "My daughters even said, ‘You don’t realise what you did,’ but I don’t think I did anything special," she said. "It’s just what you do - you look out for your neighbours."