Police Rescue Wandering Boy From Pond

By Andrew Gorosko

Police report they received a call from a Winton Farm Road home on the afternoon of Sunday, June 26, reporting that a 10-year-old autistic boy who lives there was missing from the property.

After the 1:55 pm call for help, police responded to the house and Officer Matthew Hayes spoke to the boy’s mother who told him that her missing child had wandered off into a wooded area behind the house. Winton Farm Road is a side street extending from Pine Tree Hill Road, near the Monroe town line.

Officers Maryhelen McCarthy and John McCluskey went to the Huntingtown Road area to search for the missing boy, police said.

“While searching the property of Planters’ Choice at 140 Huntingtown Road, Officer McCluskey saw the child in a pond, attempting to get out of the water,” police said. Planters’ Choice is a wholesale plant nursery.

Officers McCarthy and McCluskey then entered the pond and removed the child from the water, police said.

The uninjured boy was then returned to his parents, police added.

Police Chief Michael Kehoe declined to identify the boy who was rescued from the pond.

The police chief noted that because the youth is autistic and nonverbal, calling out his name in searching for him would not necessarily result in the boy responding to those calls, thus making finding him more difficult than usual.

The police chief estimated that Officers McCarthy and McCluskey spent about 15 minutes searching for the missing youth before finding him. The child was in chest-deep water in the pond when he was found, the police chief said.

The incident unfolded so quickly that it was not possible to get the police department’s German shepherd to the scene to search for the boy before he was found, Chief Kehoe said.

Although the boy was wet and muddy when he was brought out of the pond, he was in good physical condition and did not require a trip to the hospital, the police chief said.