KOKOMO — A major community search ended with a critical rescue Sunday morning after a missing 6-year-old boy was pulled from a neighborhood retention pond and rushed to an Indianapolis hospital.
The emergency began at approximately 9:32 a.m. when the Kokomo Police Department received a frantic call reporting that the child, who is autistic, had vanished. He was last seen on foot in the 600 block of Elk Drive, near the Kokomo Manor apartment complex.
Local police officers, alongside concerned neighborhood residents, immediately blanketed the surrounding area in a race against time. Because children on the autism spectrum are frequently drawn to bodies of water, a trait well-known to first responders, search teams quickly prioritized nearby water hazards.
At 9:52 a.m., exactly 20 minutes after the initial missing persons report was filed, officers and citizens located the boy in a retention pond positioned just north of Beachwalk Lane, directly adjacent to the neighborhood where he was first reported missing.
According to emergency dispatch traffic, individuals at the scene immediately pulled the child from the water and began administering life-saving measures, including CPR, before emergency medical personnel could take over.
The rescue required a coordinated effort from multiple local agencies, with the Kokomo Fire Department, the Howard County Sheriff’s Department, and Community Howard Medics all arriving on the scene to assist with stabilizing the child.
Due to the severity of the incident, the 6-year-old was bypassed past local clinics and transported directly to a specialized trauma hospital in Indianapolis for advanced treatment. As of Sunday evening, the Kokomo Police Department had not released an updated medical status on the juvenile.
The investigation into the circumstances that led to the child’s disappearance and how he entered the water remains active. Authorities are asking anyone who may have witnessed the boy walking near Elk Drive or Beachwalk Lane on Sunday morning to contact KPD investigators at (765) 456-7017.
