Autistic child reunited with family for Christmas thanks to an alert neighbor

Alert neighbor helps reunite autistic boy with mom

An autistic 11-year-old boy who just learned how to open the family garage wandered out of the house on Christmas Eve before he was spotted and reunited with his mom.

PHOENIX - Christmas Eve started out like any other day for Ed Rivas.

He headed out with his dog for a walk in the morning. That's when he found a lost boy.

Eleven-year-old Lorenzo Badoino is back home safe thanks to Rivas who found him walking in the neighborhood.

"We leave the house and we go down this way. But this morning we just happened to go (the other) way for the first time," said Rivas.

A change in routine led him and his dog down a different street where they found Lorenzo, who has autism and is partially non-verbal.

"I noticed by the way he was running and walking that something was different and then when I approached him, as we came up on him, I can see that he was in his underwear and a t-shirt," Rivas said.

"I asked him what his name is, how he was doing and does he need any help? He didn't answer me so I could tell right away that he was autistic."

He kept up with the boy, walking several blocks until Surprise Police could get there. They ended up a mile away from his home.

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Meanwhile, the boy's mother, Janine Badoino, was looking everywhere for her son.

"I yell his name, nothing. So immediately I'm panicking. I don't know where he is. I do another round out of the house. I can't find him anywhere," said Badoino.

There was a sigh of relief once she got on the phone with 911.

"I was on the phone for like five or six minutes and the operator told me, 'Ma'am, we have a boy in police custody and he fits the description of your son. So, he's actually still within the neighborhood,'" she said.

Janine says her son has never left his home before, but recently he learned how to open the garage.

Since the frightening incident, more safety measures are in place.

"We hung the key up here so that we actually have to manually open it from the inside rather than the opposite way," Janine said.

She asked police who helped find him and once she heard the description of a man in a scooter walking his dog, she knew who it was.

"The next day, I drove around the neighborhood hoping that he would be walking his dog again, and I just happened to stop by, and I saw him and I said, 'Can I give you a hug? Because you saved my son's life. And I am eternally grateful,'" she said.