A 5-year-old boy with autism was rescued from a Florida pond after he wandered away from his home Tuesday evening, authorities said.
The child, whose name was not released, went missing from his home in Deltona around 7:30 p.m. ET, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.
He triggered an alarm after escaping through a second-story door, according to the sheriff’s office.
A deputy rescues a 5-year-old boy who had wandered from his home in Deltona, Fla., Aug. 6, 2024.
Volusia County Sheriff’s Office
“The family immediately began looking, asked neighbors for help, and called 911,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
The boy is attracted to water, and deputies began checking bodies of water near the neighborhood when they did not find him in the immediate area, according to the sheriff’s office.
Several deputies went to a pond several blocks away, where Deputy Wes Brough “heard a voice and spotted the boy out in the water, hanging onto a log,” the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office released body camera footage of the rescue, in which Brough can be heard calling out the child’s name after hearing him near the pond.
“He’s out here somewhere,” Brough says, before finding him and running toward the water. “I got him! I got him!”
A deputy rescues a 5-year-old boy who had wandered from his home in Deltona, Fla., Aug. 6, 2024.
Volusia County Sheriff’s Office
At approximately 7:48 p.m. ET, Brough went into the water and carried the barefooted boy back to dry land.
“Wanna go see your parents?” a deputy asked.
The boy was medically cleared and returned to his family, the sheriff’s office said, which noted its deputies have received training “to help prepare for a wide variety of calls involving people with autism, including missing children.”