HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!
So, the plan was to go to the parade today, but then 15 minutes before we were due to leave, plans changed. What's new for this family? Decided to hit up the state park and go swimming instead. So we went swimming, beach was packed of course. Took Brennan to see the dam, played on the sand dunes, went for a short walk. Which brings me to my good deed.We were almost back to the van when we saw a boy about 10 years old laying on the ground just off the path. We stopped and I walked over to him, shook him awake and asked if he was ok. He seemed incoherent, he could tell us his name but couldn't tell us where he lived or where his camp site was. Neither of us had out cell phones since we had been on the dunes, so I booked it back to the beach to get a ranger for help. I ran to the concession stand and while I'm screaming at the idiotic teenage boys behind the counter who were looking at me like I was the stupid one in the situation, a 60ish woman came up to me, gave me the description and name of the boy, and said she was his grandmother. Apparently he was autistic, and was disoriented from the new medication they were giving him. She said it was a Godsend that we happened to come up to the concession stand at the same time, they had been looking all over for him and were going to the stand to find a range to set up a search party for him.
Here's my question. How do you lose a 10 year old autistic child? Shouldn't someone have been keeping better tabs on him? Who knows how long he would have laid there sleeping if I hadn't gone for help. Also, the beach was a good long ways away from where we found the boy. How on earth did he wander that far before they noticed he was missing?

3 comments:
Thank God you found him! And I agree, especially if I had given my kid new medicine I would be watching him like a hawk at a public place on a busy day!!
Wow! They're lucky that a nice person found him and not some freak! Way to go Amber! You're my hero!
Amy - I have to wonder what kind of supervision that is. An autistic kid alone on new meds at the beach on 4th of July? Um, no.
Sarah - Thanks :)
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