A 14-year-old autistic boy who wandered away from his New York school and apparently drowned was marked as being in class by three school employees even though surveillance video shows him getting off the school bus and walking away from campus, authorities said last week.
Half an hour later, when Trevyan Rowe apparently wandered onto a highway bridge over the Genesee River in Rochester, generating multiple 911 calls from alarmed motorists, dispatchers failed to follow protocol and send water-rescue crews, city officials said.
The boy’s body was pulled from the river March 11, after a three-day search.
Several school and 911 center employees have been suspended pending an investigation.
Because Trevyan was not marked absent at the beginning of the school day March 8, his mother did not receive an automated notification and only realized he was missing when he failed to return home hours later. She reported him missing about 5 p.m., more than 10 hours after he was dropped off at School 12.
