14-year-old boy with special needs found wandering by school bus driver in Wheeling

WHEELING, Ill. (WLS) -- A 14-year-old boy with special needs is safe after wandering away from his home in the frigid cold.

His mom said he is safe thanks to the kindness of an empathetic stranger and an intuitive database created by a sergeant at the Wheeling Police Department who is parent of a boy with special needs.

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Urijah Heard is non-verbal. His mother Trey Briggs said early Tuesday morning she woke up to find all four locks on the family's apartment door undone, and her son was gone.

Heard had not wandered far, but temperatures were below zero, and she said he was just in a t-shirt and underwear.

Within minutes of contacting Wheeling police, officers had already been contacted by a passing school bus driver who spotted Heard and returned to pick him up.

"The fact that he stopped and put him on the bus is amazing to me. A miracle to me," Briggs said. "He didn't just call the police either. He stopped. He gave him time to warm up. And I think he saved my son's feet, because he's stepping directly in ice, directly in snow. His hands have blisters. It was freezing. And this man put him on the bus and waited. You really don't find a lot of humans like that."

Police were then able to identify Heard almost immediately because the teen had just been registered in a program started by Sgt. Richard Giltner called "Return Home Safe."

The database includes children with special needs, with photos and information submitted by their parents, for situations specifically like this one.

"I immediately told the officers that were responding... name, birthday, address," Sgt. Gitner said. "One said, "Hey. I think this is who it is.' In minutes, we knew who it was."

Sgt. Giltner created the Return Home Safe program in 2022 because he is the father of a teen with special needs. This was its first big success.

The bus driver did not want to comment, but Heard's mother said she is eternally grateful.

In a statement, the school district said the bus driver, Freddy Leon, "not only displayed the kindness and care we hope all individuals would show when tested, Freddy also showed our students what it means to be a human being that puts others first."

"I hope that he knows that he saved Urijah's life," Briggs said.

Police said officers and firefighters took off their own coats and boots to warm Heard back up on the school bus.

The police department is planning to honor the bus driver for his actions later this month.