Body cameras from two Florida deputies have recorded the heroic rescue of a 4-year-old nonverbal boy with autism from a snake-infested pond.
On July 11, at 10:30 a.m., two deputies from Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO), Deputy Arron Gibson and Deputy Clarissa Brady, were called separately to Valleyridge Court on the busy Thonotosassa Road to follow up on the sighting of a lone child wearing only a diaper. A driver, who had seen the child run across the street toward a pond, dialed 911.
Phil Martello, HCSO’s assistant chief communications officer, told The Epoch Times: “She had pulled over and tried to coax this child somewhere ... That’s when the child, I guess, had run into the pond.”
However, the 911 call that they received just said there was a child running around without any supervision.
Deputy Brady was at the scene within eight minutes and began scanning the area. Deputy Gibson arrived two minutes later.
“Deputy Brady was able to find out where this child was and then Deputy Gibson got into the pond,” Mr. Martello said. “The water was up to his neck, you can see his whole body camera gets submerged. We had Deputy Brady onshore, the closest she could get, kind of guiding to where this child was.”
Deputy Gibson was in the water for around four minutes, according to Mr. Martello, since neither deputy thought the pond would be so deep.
The child was sitting on a bed of cattails, keeping him afloat.
“If he was any heavier, he might have sunk before they even got there,” Mr. Martello said. “Our deputy ... was pulling on the cattails to stay above water.”
With Deputy Brady calling directions, Deputy Gibson reached out to the boy and picked him up. He waded back through the dense reeds to hand the child over to his colleague, who was, by now, waist-deep in water. The pair took the child back to one of their patrol cars to wrap him in a towel.
“Throughout the rescue, they were just trying to get this kid to make noise because he wasn’t answering any of their questions, but they could kind of hear him whimpering,” Mr. Martello said.
Later, they found out that the water was chilly and the neighbors mentioned that the pond was infested with snakes and was riddled with danger, just like any other water body in Florida.
At the scene, Deputy Brady had no idea that the child was autistic. Deputy Gibson, who had read the call notes, could see that the driver who first sighted the boy had suspected he had autism.
“Autistic children gravitate towards water, that was news to me,” Mr. Martello said.
With the boy pulled out to safety, the deputies traced his family and brought him back home safely. The 4-year-old was the youngest of four siblings. Their father was at work when he escaped—unseen by his mother—through his bedroom door and out of the house.
For Deputy Gibson, who formerly worked for the Hillsborough County jail, it was his first week on the job. Deputy Brady has worked for HCSO for 17 years. It was “pretty remarkable” that this was their first joint call, Mr. Martello said.
