While heading to her office, the last thing Kristen Detwiler expected to see as she merged from northbound Route 29 onto eastbound Route 100 at 3:30 p.m. Monday, June 23, was her 7-year-old autistic son walking along the highway.

Yet, there he was, all alone, heading west against eastbound traffic.

Detwiler's son, Colin Hays, was supposed to be at Veterans Elementary School until 6 p.m. that day, where he was enrolled in a Howard County Recreation and Parks day care program.

Detwiler, who was talking on her cell phone at the time, screamed and dropped the phone.

"It was surreal," she said of seeing Colin on the highway. "It was like it wasn't happening."

Although Colin is high functioning, he needs constant supervision and had a companion aide assigned to him as part of the day-care program, Detwiler said.

Despite that, Colin managed to leave the school at about 3 p.m. that day, setting off a search of the school by staff. Officials say Colin left during a moment when his aide turned away from him.

"It's a complete embarrassment for us," said Gary Arthur, director of the Department of Recreation and Parks, adding that staff spent too much time searching the school for Colin rather than quickly notifying police of his absence. ". . . Thank God it turned out the way it did and the child is safe."

Motorists began to call 911 to report Colin walking on Route 100 at 3:19 p.m., and at least one stopped to help Colin, Detwiler said. However, Colin ran away from the stranger.

Detwiler pulled off the road, ran to her son and put him in her car. Howard County police arrived on the scene shortly afterward.

Colin told his mother that he was bored and was trying to get to their Ellicott City home.

"It's a really good thing he's OK," Detwiler said.

However, she is "completely dissatisfied" by the county's slow response to her queries for information on the incident in its aftermath, she said.

"Nobody has answers for me," she added. "Nobody knows what happened. Nobody knows the protocol with a lost child."

Savvy about quick exit

Colin left the school during a play period when his aide turned away from him, Arthur said.

"Sometimes, with children, they will take off," he added. "They know how to get out of a building quickly."

Following the county's protocol in such instances, the aide alerted the program director immediately, after which staff began to search the two rooms where Colin had last been seen, Arthur said.

However, the staff then broke protocol by not immediately notifying police after searching the rooms, Arthur said. Instead, they searched the entire building before calling police 25 minutes after Colin went missing, he said.

At that point, police were already en route to Colin thanks to the calls from motorists.

Colin's aide, who was a new employee and had undergone training, has been reassigned to another program, Arthur said.

His staff also has contacted the managers of all 500 county camps and summer programs to clarify the department's lost child protocol, which is to search the immediate premises and call police before conducting a search of the rest of a building, he added.

The department also is considering equipping some children with bracelets that will set off an alarm if they leave a building, Arthur added.

Focus put on training

County Executive Kenneth Ulman this week said that he is confident the department can avoid such incidents in the future by reiterating existing policies with staff and working with the Howard County Autism Society on training staff on how to better assist autistic children.

"You can have all the policies in the world, but unless you have the training and the staff, something can go wrong," Ulman said.

In the wake of the incident, county officials have requested a July 16 meeting with Autism Society members, said Beth Benevides Hill, co-president of the Howard County Autism Society. Hill said she hopes to offer the society's input into the county's training protocols for companion aides, which the society has done with other county departments.

"The companion program that parks and recreation offers is a wonderful program," she added. "We want to make sure companions have a better understanding of autism."

The staff person who is in charge of companion aides contacted Detwiler the afternoon Colin left the school and multiple times throughout that week, Detwiler said, adding that she is nonetheless unhappy that a senior county staff member didn't call her shortly after officials knew that Colin was missing.

When, two days after the incident, Detwiler had still gotten no response to her queries for information from Arthur, she called Ulman's office, she said, adding that Arthur called her the following day.

"They've just apologized and said they are looking at a transfer of staff and they're looking at their training programs," Detwiler said. "It's all been very vague. Gary Arthur said he assumed other people were contacting me."

Ulman said he has "for the most part" been pleased with the county's response to Detwiler, adding that Arthur notified him immediately after the incident and that he and Arthur considered the incident a top priority.

Arthur said it is department policy in the cases of missing children to call parents immediately after notifying police.

Officials did not do so in this case because 911 dispatchers notified recreation and parks staff that Detwiler was already in contact with her son and Detwiler stopped by Veterans Elementary later that day, Arthur said.

Colin is no longer in the day care program for the entire day.

He is attending the school system's extended school year program for students with disabilities from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Veterans Elementary and a recreation and parks after-school program until 6 p.m. at the school, Detwiler said.

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