Missing boy found by teacher

A 9-year-old Fairfield boy was reported missing by his mother around 7:30 a.m. today.

Jefferson County Sheriff Jerry Droz said he was located just before 9 a.m. by one of the boy?s teachers.

The missing child report was released to local media.

?Everyone responded great,? said Droz. ?Deputy Josh Tarrence was first on the scene and set up incident command. He did a good job of coordinating it all.

?The mother told us she had gone to brush her teeth and her son had taken off before she finished, with his bike and dog also missing. She said her son is autistic and if any stranger stopped to help him and touched him, he probably wouldn?t react well.?

The boy lives on the east edge of Fairfield, on Pine Avenue just off Highway 34.

?His mother also said he has a fascination with trains,? said Droz. ?Deputy Tarrence contacted Burlington Northern Railroad and had the trains stop running in case the boy was somewhere on the tracks. Eventually the trains resumed, going at 10 mph and watching for him, also.?

Jefferson County Sheriff?s Office, Fairfield Police Department, Fairfield Fire Department, Jefferson County Police Reserves, Jefferson County Correctional Officers and Iowa State Highway Patrol all responded to help search for the boy this morning.

?I don?t know how many civilians responded, but when it?s a missing child, there is a huge response,? said Droz.

?We put out a code red alert in a two-mile radius from his home,? said Droz. ?Deputy Tarrence had photos of the boy for us that his mother provided.

?Aircraft, fixed-wing, was called in to help search, coming from Des Moines, but we found him before they arrived. If we hadn?t found him right away, an Amber Alert would have gone out,? Droz said.

?This is just one of the cases that the public hears about,? said Droz. ?The public probably hears only about one in a hundred missing child calls we handle, because the child is found before an alert goes out.

?This type of call really touches us all. Either we have children, or have connections to children, and everyone wants to help. It was good someone familiar to the boy found him this morning.?