Sheriff Comes to Heirloom Teddy Bear's Rescue After Being Lost on an Interstate

— -- A Minnesota family avoided a tragedy for their toddler when they called a sheriff's department to have them find an heirloom teddy bear that was inadvertently left at the side of the road.

The family was traveling from Nashville back home to Minnesota, passing through Indiana, when a pit stop led to a lost toy, the family said.

Ashley Trepp, who got the teddy bear as a child and handed it down to her son, told ABC News that they made the pit stop along the side of Interstate 65 early Saturday evening, and didn't realize that the bear had fallen out of the car door until after they arrived in Chicago two hours later.

Trepp said calling the police weren't their first thought when it came to looking for a stuffed animal savior, having first tried calling a local pizza delivery company.

"We realized it was really gone and we were not ready to say goodbye and we were trying to figure out how to find it," she told ABC News.

Trepp said that she "poured my heart out" to the police dispatcher.

"It was a total last resort," she said. "I thought for sure they would tell me that 'You really shouldn't be calling for this sort of thing' but I was really thrilled when they told me they'd look for it and even more thrilled when they found it."

White County Sheriff Patrick Shafer said the Trepps had started calculating where it could have been and called the sheriff's department on Saturday with the location.

"They were right on," Shafer said of the intersection that the couple gave the dispatcher on where they thought the bear could be.

Deputy Matthew White was sent out to the scene and was able to retrieve the bear.

Shafer said that the bear, whose name is reportedly "Other One Bear" and was handed down to her son Freddy, has been sent back to the Trepps and should arrive home in Minnesota this afternoon.