Missing autistic child home safely but parents worry about future

EAGLE RIVER — No one – not even his mother – knows what prompted young Keegan Ott to bolt from the family’s Eagle River garage on June 16.

Aside from the bright gleam in his eyes, the autistic eight-year-old is non-communicative. He does not use full sentences and the few phrases he mimics are only uttered as requests for life’s basics, such as drink or food.

“I wish he could tell me,” Kelly Ott, Keegan’s mother said in reference to what sensory input could have captured her son’s attention causing him to not trail behind her all the way through the family’s garage to the inside of their home off Stewart Drive upon their arrival home shortly after the work day was through last Friday night.

“We had just come home and were in the driveway and Keegan was following behind me as we went in to the garage and in to the house to say ‘hi’ to the babysitter and the other two kids and the dog,” Kelly explained. “He should have been right behind me. Most of the time, he is right behind me.”

Kelly said her attention was diverted from Keegan for just a few brief seconds.

And he was gone.

Instantly.

“So incredibly fast,” she said through tears Monday night.

The Ott family’s experience Friday night is a typical scenario for families in which cognitively-challenged children such as Keegan are members and the bulk of family life is anything but what others would consider “normal.”

Children with autism – a cognitive condition in which the brain of the affected individual processes information and sensory input very differently from that of a person with a neurtopical brain – are often easily distracted from their normal routine and regularly respond to stimulus in ways contrary to what “normal” society expects.

Kelly has gotten used to Keegan’s short-term disappearances.

She regularly ends up checking the trampoline where he likes to bounce or the trees he likes to climb or the buckets of water stationed around the family’s yard that he likes to play with.

Usually, she will find him near or around one of those.

But not Friday night.

For whatever reason, searchers now know that Keegan took off in to the woods and began climbing through brush and thicket up the steep hills that provide such a picturesque backdrop for the family home.

Shortly after 1 a.m. on Saturday morning, a neighbor several switchbacks up Stewart Drive contacted dispatch at the Anchorage Police Department to let them know that a young boy was playing with toys in their living room.

Turns out it was Keegan, and the nightmare that Kelly and her husband, Glenn Ott, were living through Friday night ended with police picking their son up and bringing him home.

“He was dirty,” Kelly said with a laugh. “It was obvious he had been in the woods. His arms and legs were scratched up.”

Kelly said her boy just wanted to go to bed – probably one of the most “normal” things he has ever done.

But she put him in the bath and after that to bed.

“He was not in any distress,” she noted. “It was as if nothing had happened except he was dirty.”

Keegan’s disappearance immobilized his direct neighborhood and hundreds more people from the local community as word spread that the young, vulnerable boy was missing.

The parking lot at P and M Gardens – where Keegan and Kelly had just shopped earlier that morning – became a makeshift, but fairly well-organized command center from which APD, FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and various rescue organizations gave out search assignments to the steady stream of concerned citizens offering their help.

They were told to knock on doors asking permission to search backyards, boats, campers, culverts, garages, greenhouses, sheds and any other smaller space that a child Keegan’s size could hide in.

Volunteer searchers got a verbal crash course in autism from search organizers trying to best equip folks who were trying to help.

They were told he most likely would not respond to them because Keegan is non-verbal.

APD officials say that Kelly did everything the right way in reporting her son’s disappearance so quickly.

When she could not find him in any of his usual haunts by the 45-minute mark, friends “encouraged” her to call police.

“There is no time frame for reporting someone as a runaway (17 and younger) or missing (18 or older). People often think they have to wait 24 hours because that is what they see on TV but that’s not true in our jurisdiction,” Renee Oistad, APD communications director, wrote in an email to Alaska Family Fun Online Magazine. “Generally speaking, we recommend that after people check their immediate area, and normal hang out spots for their missing loved one, to call the police if that person cannot be found. If there are extenuating circumstances such as suicide threats, mental or physical disabilities, medication/health issues, etc, then the sooner the police are notified the better.”

One of the first on the scene was the husband of her son’s principal at Fire Lake Elementary School.

“Seeing him there was very comforting,” Kelly said.

Soon, the Ravenwood Elementary School parking became an official command center where police and other officials gathered to plan and then disseminate information to the crowd of willing searchers at P and M Gardens. A helicopter flew overhead for hours and canine search units were exposed to Keegan’s scent and put to work. The sides of the Eagle River Road looked more like a parking lot than a place where bicyclist and joggers usually are. Reports of bears and mama moose with calves in the area caused Kelly to worry even more for Keegan’s safety.

Friday night’s ordeal was one she did not face alone – her friends were on hand and the steady stream of concerned community members helped as well. Yet, her husband – a member of the Air National Guard – was in Fairbanks on a training mission. He was sent immediately home to be with his family, but did not arrive until 12:30 a.m. Saturday – just a precious half hour or so before word that Keegan was safe was delivered to the Ott family.

The family went to their property in Willow on Father’s Day to just escape all the drama.

Monday morning at work, Kelly started answering the continual questions detailing the event and describing her emotional state.

That too was among folks that she knows understand. Kelly is an occupational therapist at Alaska Regional in Anchorage. She works with adults and sees clearly where her son’s growing up is headed.

Yet, she was worn out by Monday night around 9:30 p.m. when she called this writer – an autism mom herself that joined the search party – to talk after Keegan was asleep.

“I have to watch him 24 hours a day,” she said with a shaky voice. “Sometimes I have to sleep with him just to make sure he is safe.”

She and Glenn know that people think a tracking device would be a simple solution.

But it is not necessarily so.

They tried that two years ago and Keegan balked. They hid all the sharp items such as knives but he found them anyway and worked religiously to remove the tracking device.

They worried he would harm himself.

Yet, now they are putting that worry aside in fear that their son – who is physically able and remarkably fast – will go missing again. They are evaluating the newer tracking technology to see what might work.

“That he went that far Friday night is disturbing,” Kelly said. “We have to figure out how to keep him safe.”

Editor’s Note: Amy Armstrong is one of the Co-Conspirators in Communication at Tripod Communications, LLC, which is the owner of Alaska Family Fun. Visit www.alaskafamilyfun.com.