The police in central Florida rescued a missing girl with autism from a wooded swamp late Monday, a police video showed.
Aviation officers from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) responded to the emergency call at about 5:10 p.m. regarding the missing girl who had wandered away from her Tampa home, the HCSO said Tuesday in a statement.
An aviation thermal imaging camera spotted the girl walking in the woods, the video showed.
“Hey, I think I got her in the woods,” an aviation officer radioed while overhead as deputies conducted the ground search. “She might be able to hear her name if you call her now; she’s going to be about, I’d say, about eighty feet running … Just keep walking in that direction.”
“Oh, there she is,” said one of the officers on the ground, the video showed.
“Come here, sweetheart,” the officers called, one of them with his arms outspread, to the girl. (RELATED: Video Shows Police Rescuing Girl From Hidden Closet Compartment)
🚨𝐃𝐞𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐒𝐚𝐟𝐞🚨
On February 26, 2024, at 5:10 p.m., #teamHCSO‘s Aviation Unit was called to assist deputies in locating a five-year-old autistic child who had wandered away from home in Tampa.
In under an hour, our… pic.twitter.com/YvPjJW5pQj
— HCSO (@HCSOSheriff) February 27, 2024
The girl could be seen also stretching out her arms and walking through the swamp toward the officer who spread out his arms. The officer lifted her out and helped her to a sitting position in the back of a police truck, the video showed. The girl appeared unruffled. She was uninjured, the police added in the statement.
The rescue took place in less than an hour after the emergency call, the HCSO said in the tweet accompanying the video.
HCSO Sheriff Chad Chronister praised the rescue team. “Their quick action saved the day, turning a potential tragedy into a hopeful reunion,” he said in the statement. “Their dedication shows what service and protection are all about here at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.”
The child’s family permitted the HCSO to show the child’s face in the video, according to the HCSO’s statement.
Earlier in the day, and in a separate incident, the HCSO rescued a septuagenarian woman from the smoking wreckage of her car after she crashed through a fence and into the woods, according to a police video’s Twitter description. The woman’s car went up in flames after she was rescued with minor injuries, the Twitter post added. In the video, smoke can be seen rising in the air in the distance. She has since recovered after hospital treatment, according to the post.