Two Ohio police officers rescued a missing girl with autism from a pond over the weekend.
The 6-year-old girl, who is non-verbal, was reported missing by her family shortly after 4 p.m. Sunday, and Blue Ash police began a search for her, WKRC-TV reports. After an hour, officers located the child in the middle of a pond.
"A lot of times when you're dealing with autistic kids, they're drawn to water, said Chief Scott Noel. "We know that. When our officers made contact with her and we're trying to coax her to come to shore, she did the opposite. She went further into the water."
When Sgt. Todd Stewart and Officer Tim Bittner saw the girl moving deeper into the pond, they jumped into action. Body camera footage captured their efforts.
"We're gonna have to go her," Stewart told Bittner. "We have to do this now."
The officers ditched their gear, including their body cameras, and entered the water. They pulled the uninjured girl ashore, and she was reunited with her family.
"We do what we have to do, and this was an urgent situation, and we weren't going to sit around and talk about it and formulate a game plan," said Noel. "Somebody was going in the water, and Tim volunteered, and we had a good outcome."
