A 5-year-old boy with autism was found dead Friday morning in a pond behind his family’s apartment in Greater Northdale, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said.
The sheriff’s office received a phone call around 9:30 a.m. Friday from the boy’s father, who reported his son was missing, Chronister said at a news conference. The father saw that a screen enclosing the apartment’s patio had been broken.
“This is the family’s worst day,” the sheriff said.
Deputies arrived at the Northgreen at Carrollwood apartment complex within minutes. More than 140 deputies participated in the search, Chronister said.
A bloodhound began circling a 30-foot retention pond behind the apartment complex. A member of the sheriff’s office dive team found the boy in waist-high water.
“This isn’t the outcome any of us would ever wish to have,” Chronister said.
The sheriff’s office did not release the name of the boy, who was nonverbal. He had recently turned 5 and was accepted into an elementary school that serves students with disabilities, Chronister said.
“Now Monday, instead of planning the first day of school, they have to plan a funeral,” he said.
On June 13, deputies recovered the body of another 5-year-old autistic child who had drowned in a different pond on the same property, Chronister said.
“Autistic children are prone and attracted to bodies of water,” said Chronister, who also stressed the importance of swim lessons for children.
In April 2025, deputies with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office found an autistic, nonverbal 3-year-old dead in a pond in Palm Harbor. The boy had wandered away from his home.
Three months later, Hillsborough deputies found a 6-year-old in a pond in Town ‘N Country. The boy died later at a hospital. It is not clear if he was autistic.
Florida law requires residential swimming pools built after 2000 to have a fence or barrier at least 4 feet high. The barriers cannot have any openings that would allow a child to “crawl under, squeeze through, or climb over.”
State lawmakers across the country are reluctant to require barriers around retention ponds because of how ubiquitous they are and the effort required to enclose them, according to William Ramos, an Indiana University professor who specializes in drowning prevention.
“It’s a big lift,” said Ramos, who has heard stories of autistic children drowning in ponds “over and over again.” Retention ponds gather runoff water, so they go from shallow to deep quickly, he said.
It’s not clear if any Florida laws regulate retention pond barriers, but some condo associations put fencing around them, said Terri Ballo, president of the Florida Drowning Prevention Foundation.
The nonprofit gives out free door alarms, which Ballo said help prevent drowning, along with door locks placed high up, out of children’s reach. The nonprofit recently received a $10,000 grant to fund swim lessons for children with autism and other special needs.
This year, through the end of June, 85 children have drowned in Florida, according to data from the Florida Department of Children and Families. The annual number of drownings has increased over the last five years.
