JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A missing 4-year-old boy with autism died Tuesday after he was found in a retention pond in a Baymeadows subdivision, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
JSO responded to a call for a missing child at a home on Star Lane in the Baymeadows neighborhood around 5:30 p.m.
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Officers arrived at the area around 8 minutes later and began a search for the little boy.
JSO said the air, drone, dive team and K9 units all worked to find the child.
Around 6:52 p.m., JSO said the K9 unit found the 4-year-old in a retention pond about 1,000 feet from the home in a gated community off Baymeadows Circle and Meadow Walk Lane.
He was taken to the hospital, where he died.
JSO is investigating the circumstances surrounding how the child went missing, but Lt. Adam Blinn said these situations are sadly not uncommon.
“It is something that tragically does happen pretty frequently. We respond as quickly as we can. That is one area that the patrol officers are trained to go. They go check bodies of water and things like that first thing,” Blinn said. “Unfortunately, we did not get there in time today.”
According to the Autism Society of Florida:
- Children with autism are 160 times more likely to drown compared to their peers
- 50% of children with autism wander, with nearly all of them gravitating toward water
