PALM BAY, Fla. – A 3-year-old boy with nonverbal autism was returned safely to his mother Sunday after getting stuck chest deep in a canal, Palm Bay police said.
The rescue happened about 11:20 a.m. Sunday in the 100 block of Anderson Avenue after the mother noticed her son was missing.
"Then my daughter came in and let me know that the gate was open. And I said, 'What do you mean the gate is open?'" mother Rachel Fredette told News 6 Monday.
She said her son was playing in the backyard with some of his three siblings when he walked out of the yard through an unlocked gate.
Fredette quickly called police, who at the northeast Palm Bay neighborhood within minutes to conduct a search.
“The mom had turned around and he was gone. Because of her quick-thinking, we were able to get out there and find him. He was chest-deep in water in the canal,” Palm Bay police Lt. Mike Bandish said.
“They went back to their training and acted instinctively. We don’t know how long he had been out there,” Bandish said. “They found him before we could even set up a command station to coordinate the search.”
Police Officers Greg Moore and Derin Morgan arrived at the home and searched the surrounding areas for pools and bodies of water. Moments later, they spotted the small boy sitting in a nearby canal.
“They went back to their training and acted instinctively. We don’t know how long he had been out there,” Bandish said. “They found him before we could even set up a command station to coordinate the search.”
"I saw what looked like something moving in the middle of the canal," Moore said.
The rescuing police officer said his training reminded him that children with autism like being near water.
That's what gave him a hunch to look in the canal.
"Reverting back to that training, I immediately went to the closest area that I thought. And that would be the canal line," Moore said. "I just wanted to get him out of the water before he got into deeper water."
Moore returned the 3-year-old boy to his mother.
Police said the successful search and rescue mission only took 10 minutes.
"I am very, very thankful," Fredette said. "Nobody could ever express how thankful I'm going to be for a long time."
"As far as he's concerned, he was just outside playing. But it was a very tough situation to deal with," said the boy's father, Josh Oliveras.
Palm Bay police said the parents are not at fault, criminally. They said they did the right thing by calling officers the moment they knew something was wrong.