Autistic Boy Struck By Vehicle After Wandering onto Freeway
September 6, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A nine-year-old autistic boy wandered onto the onramp of a freeway in El Monte, California, and was struck by a vehicle about 1.45am on Wednesday morning, as reported by ABC7.com news. Police had just left the boy’s house and spoken to his parents, who had reported him missing; the driver of the vehicle stopped and notified authorities. The boy suffered a broken arm and a cut to his head and was treated at a hospital.
Life raising an autistic child is not a nightmare, but the thought of something like this happening to one’s child most definitely is.
This is why, fire codes be damned, all of our doors to the outside require a key to get in AND out. Jared could still make a break for it, but it’s enough steps that he’d probably get bored and play GameCube.
What scares us most is the idea of him eloping from school. He just got “mainstreamed” from a special school for 3- to 21-year-olds that deals with this issue all the time to a plain old kindergarten in a school without a fence surrounding the playground. I really hope they’re watching him like a hawk.
What happens during recess? Charlie (who always has someone with him) would be not so likely to bolt and run away as to just sort of wander off and not heed requests to come back.