Thankfully I Didn't Over React When An Autistic Kid Wondered Into My Home

Earlier this morning, I was sitting all by myself in my office surfing the web, my had just walked out the door for school. No sooner does he walk out the door, someone grabs the mail out of the mailbox and walks into the house.

I'm not thinking much about it, I figure it was my wife coming home early from her Weight Watchers meeting. When I call out her name and got no response other than some heavy breathing (could I be getting lucky? Ha ha, I thought), I walked out of my office to see a really BIG KID wearing sweats with no shoes or socks on, wondering around the house!

I notice right away that this kid had some kind of problem and recognized it as autism I asked him his name and if he lived in the area, when I didn't get a response I dialed 911.

After following this poor kid around my house, upstairs and down for what seemed like an eternity but was no more than 5 minutes or so, two Middletown Police officers (who were great and very professional, I wish I would have gotten their names) arrived and started trying to figure out where this kid belonged and who he was.

While trying to figure out this kids identity, he had no identification on him and was non-verbal, a guy comes pounding on my front door. It was the kids father, all out of breath and acting like he was about to go into cardiac arrest.

The father explained that he had left the house for a few minutes with his son safely locked inside to run a quick errand. When he drove by my house on his way back home, he noticed the two police cars outside my house but didn't think anything of it. After returning home however, he noticed the back door to the house open and the backyard gate open to the street. He then ran immediately to my house hoping to all hell that his son was here. Sure enough, he was!

The father was very shaken and apologized profusely. I told him all was good and not to worry, I understood what he was going through since I had an extended family member who suffers from non-verbal autism herself and seeing what her parents went through everyday I understood what he was going through. It took the kids father about 5-10 minutes to get his son out of the house and back on the road to his. I felt bad for the guy.

It was a scary experience and I'm glad that I recognized the kids problem and didn't overreact. I actually think this kid was lucky that he walked into my house and not someone elses. There could have been a totally different outcome if that had happened and the kid, instead of being somewhat docile, had been aggressive or violent. It could have ended tragically.

Thank GOD everything worked out (and my wife wasn't home ).