BLUE ASH, OH– A missing six-year-old girl has been reunited with her family after officers rescued her from a pond.
The incident occurred Sunday in Blue Ash, Ohio.
The family of the six-year-old non-verbal child contacted police around 4:00 p.m. to report her missing.
After searching for the child for about an hour, authorities noticed that the child was swimming in the middle of the pond.
“A lot of times when you’re dealing with autistic kids, they’re drawn to water,” said Blue Ash Chief Scott Noel. “We know that. When our officers made contact with her, and were trying to coax her to come to shore, she did the opposite. She went out further into the water.”
Authorities immediately removed their equipment and jumped into the water to save the child.
She was brought back to the shore where officers described her as unharmed but shaken.
Chief Noel commended the two officers who jumped into action without hesitation to save the child:
That’s just our mindset,” Chief Noel said. “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 gameplan. Somebody was going in the water, and Tim volunteered and we had a good outcome.”