Parents devastated, speak out after 3-year-old autistic son drowned in Miami-Dade canal
SOUTHWEST MIAMI DADE-- An unimaginable tragedy turns a family's world upside down.
Miami Dade police and fire rescue responded to a call about a missing three year old boy overnight Saturday.
When police arrived at the scene around Southwest 212th Street and 119th Avenue, they started searching for the young boy and found him unresponsive in a canal down the street from the family home.
"I think he walked out and got into the lake," said Laeticia Elyze, the mother of the young boy.
Police immediately started to perform lifesaving efforts on the three-year-old, identified by his family as Kayden Petit Frere, before he was taken to Baptist Health Homestead Hospital where he died.
"I was devastated," said Elyze.
Kayden's parents tell CBS News Miami he had autism and believe he wandered from the home and fell into the canal as they were tending to their other two young children.
The family, shocked and in a state of disbelief that this happened to their sweet little boy.
"He's a fun kid to play with, he likes to sing his ABC's and stuff," said Elyze.
The area where Kayden fell in is not gated and now his parents fear that the same thing that happened to their son could happen to other children in the neighborhood.
"I just hope that they put in gate so for somebody kids not die again," said Jean Willey Petit Frere, Kayden's father.
"The same way that happened to my son, it could've happened to any other kids," said Elyze.
It's still unclear exactly how Kayden fell into the canal and police are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding his drowning.