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Teens save missing boy with autism from drowning, help reunite him with parents
By Greg Norman
Published July 22, 2021
Two Nebraska teenagers are being credited with saving the life of a young boy with autism after saving the child from drowning in a pond.
Caron Caldwell, 16, and Tryston Santos, 15, sprang into action Sunday evening in Lincoln when they spotted the child flailing his arms with his head bobbing underwater, according to KETV.
"His head went underwater again and he wasn't getting back up," Caldwell told the station, describing how he jumped into the water to pull the struggling child to safety.
The pond in Lincoln, Neb., where the boy was spotted drowning.
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"He was clinging on to me pretty hard. It was kind of surreal when I grabbed him. He definitely couldn't stand in there," Caldwell added.
Once on land, Caldwell says the child had trouble communicating.
"He didn't know where he lived, so we knocked on people's doors to see if they knew the kid," Santos told KETV.
Abbie Wilson, a neighbor who responded, notified the police who reportedly located the child’s parents as they were out searching for him.
Investigators told KETV that the boy has autism and apparently wandered away from his family when they weren’t looking.
Wilson said to the station that boy’s mother became emotional when the two were reunited.
"Both hands went on her face and she went down kind of crying a little bit after hearing what happened," she said.
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Meanwhile, Caldwell says he and his friend were going to play basketball when they first spotted the child – and might have passed through the area earlier if he himself wasn’t running late.
"It took me forever to find my socks and it literally saved his life," he told KETV.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/nebraska-teens-save-boy-autism