November 2, 2024
On Thursday morning, an officer in Independence, Missouri, proved his mettle after following his intuition and quickly locating a missing child under difficult circumstances. The boy, a 10-year-old who has...

On Thursday morning, an officer in Independence, Missouri, proved his mettle after following his intuition and quickly locating a missing child under difficult circumstances.

The boy, a 10-year-old who has autism and is non-verbal, escaped from his driver on his way to school and took off into an abandoned area, right toward a pond.

He tore into the water, and then he disappeared.

Police got a call around 9:30 a.m. concerning the incident, and officer Dustin Stewart was on the scene within minutes.

He didn’t know exactly where the child was, but he followed his gut and went in immediately.

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“I jump in with him,” Stewart told WDAF-TV. “I feel around for a little bit, swim throughout the pond.”

“I eventually feel him against my leg. I reach down and pull him out.”

The boy had been underwater for three or four minutes, and when Stewart pulled him to the surface, he was unresponsive.

“He was not breathing,” Steward recalled. “He was blue. Soon as they started doing CPR, he was spitting up water.”

The child was transported to the hospital for further care. There has been no update on his condition, but the fact that he was found in the pond so quickly is miraculous.

“It doesn’t look deep at all,” Stewart said. “When you step in, you sink really fast. It’s like soft, soft mud.”

“After about 10 feet … you’re not touching.”

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The boy’s mother, Malana Kielbowick, said that the driver should be held responsible since it’s known that the boy is prone to running off.

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“I keep padlocks on my doors,” Kielbowick explained. “Everything’s always supervised. … This is why I don’t like sending my kid to school.”

“I don’t think it really hit me yet because I think he’s doing OK. But still, the driver needs fired. They need to take consequences, and I’m here to tell my story.”

Many are calling Stewart a hero. While he’s thankful things turned out as they did, to him it’s all just part of a day’s work.

“I’m grateful,” he told KMBC-TV. “That’s what we come to do this job for, so it’s very rewarding.”

Amanda holds an MA in Rhetoric and TESOL from Cal Poly Pomona. After teaching composition and logic for several years, she’s strayed into writing full-time and especially enjoys animal-related topics.

As of January 2019, Amanda has written over 1,000 stories for The Western Journal but doesn’t really know how. Graduating from California State Polytechnic University with a MA in Rhetoric/Composition and TESOL, she wrote her thesis about metacognitive development and the skill transfer between reading and writing in freshman students.
She has a slew of interests that keep her busy, including trying out new recipes, enjoying nature, discussing ridiculous topics, reading, drawing, people watching, developing curriculum, and writing bios. Sometimes she has red hair, sometimes she has brown hair, sometimes she’s had teal hair.
With a book on productive communication strategies in the works, Amanda is also writing and illustrating some children’s books with her husband, Edward.

Location

Austin, Texas

Languages Spoken

English und ein bißchen Deutsch

Topics of Expertise

Faith, Animals, Cooking