Nurse found a scared little girl hiding in a nursing facility. She raised her for 10 yrs, before officially asking the question she always wanted to
Savanah Patt saw fear in a child’s eyes and decided that walking away wasn’t an option.
It was an ordinary day at a skilled nursing facility in Oklahoma City until Savanah Patt, one of the administrators, walked into a resident’s room and noticed something unusual — a little girl crouched behind a recliner. The 9-year-old girl looked terrified, barefoot, and too afraid to speak. "She looked at me and she wouldn’t talk at all. I was like, 'Um, who is this?' And she said, ‘Oh, that’s my granddaughter.’ She smelled terrible, she was very dirty, she didn’t have shoes," Patt told KFOR 4.
The girl, named Renlee, had been hiding in her grandmother’s room for a week, reported KFOR 4. A neighbor had dropped her off after finding her living alone with her older brother in a hoarder's trailer filled with animals and garbage. According to Patt, the children’s parents were lifelong addicts who often forced their daughter to panhandle for drug money. "They would take the food stamps and trade them for drugs," Patt said. "They hoisted her into dumpsters, and they would go dumpster diving."
Renlee’s lice infestation was so severe that she couldn’t return to school. With no one to help her, she stayed home for a year until Patt stepped in. "I fell in love with her," Patt said. She began caring for Renlee and eventually adopted her. 10 years later, Renlee said she had spent more of her life with the family that chose her than with the one she was born into. "I don’t know where I’d be without my mom. I was born with meth, and heroin, and pretty much every drug you can think of in my system as a baby," said Renlee, now 19.
Children born under those circumstances often face lifelong challenges. Yet studies have found that when they’re placed in stable, loving homes, many go on to thrive. A 14-year study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry followed 275 adopted children and found that while those with prenatal substance exposure showed early behavioral risks, those raised in consistent and supportive families fared far better over time. Family stability, the research noted, was one of the strongest predictors of long-term recovery — the stability Renlee found with Patt, which helped her break the cycle of generational addiction.
Renlee is now studying to become a nurse. "Her finding me in a room, and now I’m going to be kind of working with people like that," she said. "It’s amazing to just feel loved and safe." A few years after adopting Renlee, Patt received another call. This time, someone was asking if she would also take in Renlee’s older sister, Cheyanne, who had been moving between relatives and acquaintances. "She had been left at a Circle K gas station in Yukon," Patt said. "I pull up, she was sitting outside, and she looks at me. I rolled down the window and she said, 'What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘You want to live with me?’ She said, 'You want me?' And I said, 'Yeah, girl.'"
Patt became a mother of two that day. "People are like, ‘Oh, you saved them.’ No, no friends. They saved me, because having them made me want to be better," she said. Both girls went on to graduate high school, the first in their families to do so. Renlee is now on track for a nursing degree, and Cheyanne is pursuing her own goals. Renlee hopes to one day adopt a child herself. "Whether they’re clean, dirty, whatever. They deserve love, too. They deserve to be happy and have a home and be safe and not have to worry about where they’re going to get their next meal," she said. Patt replied, "The attachment and bond that you get when you’re choosing to love, and they’re choosing to love, is so beautiful."
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