MINNEAPOLIS – A Minnesota mother is on a mission to protect children with autism and ease the burden on their families.
Sheletta Brundidge has three children with autism.
She says her 9-year-old son, Daniel, has spent most of his life trying to escape the house at every chance he gets, a common impulse for children with autism.
“It’s mentally exhausting, it’s physically exhausting, where you have to be one step ahead of your child all the time,” Brundidge said.
Brundidge says there have been some terrifying close calls, like one time when Daniel left her parents’ home in Texas.
“He’s running at full speed, waving his hands and just having a good old time, heading down a four-lane highway where cars were going 50-60 miles per hour in Houston, Texas,” she said. “Luckily I was able to catch him before he got there because he wouldn’t have stopped.”
A few years ago, Brundidge came across key-coded indoor door locks that cost about $30.
She calls them a game-changer because they keep Daniel inside and safe.
“We turned the house into Fort Knox,” Brundidge said.
She now holds giveaways to give the locks to all families with autism.
It started when someone went missing A 4-year-old Hopkins boy drowned this summer.
This weekend, an 11-year-old boy escaped from his home in Eden Prairie and also drowned.
Brundidge has given out nearly 600 locks for free, and another giveaway is in the works.
“It takes away the fear, the anxiety and the worry that my child might try to escape from the house,” she said. “These aren’t just locks. These are lives saved.”
In the event of an emergency or an empty battery, the locks can also be opened with regular keys.
For extra safety for her son, Brundidge uses a system that makes different sounds when different doors are opened.
