Good outcomes like this aren’t the norm, but are the exception.
Autistic children are often attracted to bodies of water, such as pools and lakes, but that can be a dangerous combination, as one Kansas family learned the hard way on May 18.
Mom Alexis was in the bathroom of her apartment in Lawrence, and just minutes had passed when she came out and found the door wide open, her 4-year-old son Xavier missing.
She added, “I was in the restroom, and just anything can happen. Anything can happen in a matter of minutes.”
Xavier, who is nonverbal and autistic, survived and was seen hopping and skipping excitedly in front of the podium, clearly now doing well.
The extraordinary outcome is owed to a pair of local heroes, a 12-year-old boy, Maddox, and his dad, Tom, who were near the pool that day.
Maddox had heard commotion, and his friends alerted him of the drowning toddler, so he ran to get his dad.
The pool was surrounded by a 6-foot-high metal fence with a locked gate, but the toddler, recalled Maddox, somehow crawled under the fence.
A security camera captured the boy jumping into the pool and not surfacing again.
Footage shows the moment when Tom arrived at the scene, climbed over the fence, and ran to the pool; at which point, Xavier could no longer be seen.
The dad jumped in, fished the boy out, and performed CPR on him, until first responders arrived minutes later. By that time, he was breathing and had started crying.
“I had CPR training but it had been over 15 years probably since I had it. And I just remembered the chest compressions,” Tom stated. “Definitely when he started to cough up water, I knew that was a good sign.”
He added, “It definitely hits home a lot harder, having a son myself. I’m glad everything turned out the way it did.”
Tom and Maddox were congratulated at the conference and awarded certificates for their heroism.
“I told Tom on that day that was one of the most heroic things that we have ever witnessed. We usually get to the scene just in the aftermath,” stated Battalion Chief Rob Fleeup of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical. “Far too often, these stories do not have a positive outcome.”
Alexis was reunited with the heroes. She hugged Tom and thanked them for saving her son’s life.
The department’s inhouse advocate Lieutenant Jeff Krall, who lost a child to drowning in 2008, took the opportunity to make the public more aware of water safety.
“Between 388,000–500,000 people drown a year worldwide, it’s the leading cause of unintentional death in children, and the number one cause of unintentional death for children 1–4 years old, Xavier fit that age group,” said Krall.
He added, “The risk of drowning for children with autism is as high as 10 times greater than that of other children.”
He cites access to pools, lakes, and bathtubs; not taking swimming lessons; failure to wear life vests; and not knowing what drowning looks like as causes for these statistics.
Drowning does not look like drowning. “The majority of these are witnessed but not recognized,” he added. “The victims do not have the ability to scream when they’re drowning, and they don’t have the ability to splash their arms like you see on TV.”
