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Boy Wanders Away From Camp onto Rt. 100
By Richard | July 8, 2008
People often think that we parents of kids with autism are too overprotective…if we are then this is why.
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Wandering boy stirs camp concerns
Larry Carson | Baltimore Sun
Kristen Detwiler had just merged onto busy Route 100 in Ellicott City one afternoon last week when she saw a shocking sight: Her 7-year-old autistic son was running against traffic on the right shoulder.
“I slammed on the brakes and started running after him yelling, ‘Stop, Colin, it’s Mommy! Stop! stop!’” she recalled.
Detwiler gathered up her son as other motorists called 911. A county police officer arrived and accompanied Detwiler back to Veterans Elementary School, the site of a county-sponsored summer day camp from which her son had wandered off.
Though the boy was unharmed, Detwiler, an Ellicott City resident, said she is angry that camp staffers did not call police earlier and that after the incident, she did not receive a call from a high-ranking parks department official for two days.
“We’re talking about a lost kid with autism,” Detwiler said. “There should have been an ambulance, a helicopter, immediate police. It took them 30 minutes” to call 911.
County officials say that though staff members followed protocol for searching for a missing child, the search was too extensive, delaying a call to the police. MORE
Topics: In The News, Wandering |