When Minneapolis bus driver Ambrose Younge was at the end of his route, he noticed a young boy wandering alone during a snowstorm. He knew he must do something.
On Feb. 22, Younge grew concerned after he saw a 9-year-old boy alone and wearing a backpack on a day he knew that school was canceled.
“There was a child in the road, he was tugging on the handle of the door, of a car, trying to get in the car,” the Metro Transit bus driver told local NBC affiliate KARE. “And as I was thinking, I was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here.’”
“That was the day that all the snow in the world decided to come to Minnesota,” he told the outlet, noting that the little boy couldn’t talk but convinced him to get on the bus.
Younge would later find out that the boy has autism.
The bus driver called the control center that Metro shares with the police department and informed them of the lost boy.
“It was within minutes that transit control center reported that driver Younge had already made contact with a child,” patrol officer Juan Peralta told the outlet. “It was just a matter of seconds before we realized it was the child missing from north Minneapolis.”
Officer Peralta said the boy had wandered about 15 blocks from home.
In a Metro Transit blog post about the incident, it states that Metro Transit police training includes working with people who are autistic. The officer ruled out any possibility of neglect, adding, “In this particular occasion, he moved a little bit too fast for the caretaker.”
The boy was reunited with his family thanks to Younge, who said he did not want to be called a hero.
“I consider myself a dad because that’s what I would hope someone would do for my child,” he said, adding, “I guess we are the guardians of the city."
