A seven-year-old boy with autism who went missing from a restaurant in Queens Friday morning has been reunited with his mother after the tyke turned up hours later in Manhattan, police said.
The boy, who is nonverbal, disappeared from Dera Restaurant in Jackson Heights around 11:45 a.m., police said. He had been having breakfast with his mother at the South Asian eatery and slipped away when she went to the bathroom to wash her hands.
The boy’s mother quickly reported him missing and police combed the borough looking form him.
Somehow, the little kid made it all the way to Manhattan, where a woman walking along E. 61st St. spotted him dart into traffic. The woman ran after the boy and was able to grab him and bring him back to safety before calling 911.
“On 58th, he went across the crosswalk when it was still red, and there were cars coming,” the Good Samaritan said at a press conference. “And then when we hit 57th, the cars were going both ways and he ran into the middle of the street. There were two different cars going each way that stopped and they were honking their horns, and he just kept going, and I was trying to get him but I didn’t want to get hit either, so he was a little more of a hero than I was running into the middle of the street.”
Responding officers recognized the child from an alert they received and reunited the boy with his mother.
It’s still not clear how the boy made it all the way to Manhattan, but his mother said he has an obsession with New York City landmarks.
