Autistic Teen Safe After Scooter Trip On I-95

MIAMI (CBS4) - A North Miami mother and her wayward autistic son were reunited Sunday after the teen decided to take his scooter for a spin on I-95.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, 14-year old Brian Miller was spotted on his Razor scooter in the southbound lanes of the highway near NW 69th Street, about five miles from his home in the 600 block of NE 122nd Street.

"He wanted to go to a family member's house, and he's gone in the car before, so with his problem with autism he thought he could go there on his scooter...I had no idea this was all happening," Marisol Miller told CBS4's Natalia Zea.

A good Samaritan, Claudia Reynoso saw him, stopped him and called 911. Reynoso is a teacher and a mother of 3 boys.

"My heart was pounding and I thought to myself, 'oh my God, someone's gonna hit this little boy," she told Zea.

She and another good samaritan blocked Brian from going any further.

"We physically stood in front of him just to make sure that God forbid if he were to have any sort of reaction to leave or to run or whatever, that we were there just to kind of protect him," said Reynoso.

"About 1:30 this afternoon we received a very unusual call about a little boy who was riding one of these Razor scooters on I-95," said Miami Fire Rescue spokesman Lt. Ignatius Carroll. "Initially we thought we were going to respond to a child being hit by a car while riding the scooter, or a child that may have fallen off. But we ran in to a boy who was autistic riding on the scooter on the shoulder heading toward the exit ramp."

Carroll said they initially had problems figuring out who the boy was.

"When we tried to talk to the boy, he was unable to give us any information about himself, his name or where he lived," said Carroll. "At that time firefighters contacted the Florida Highway Patrol along with Miami police and they brought him to Fire Station #9 in Little Haiti. We checked him out, he appeared to be medically okay; we found no injuries on him and we found he was definitely hungry."

At the fire station, Carroll said police realized that a child reported missing earlier in the day in North Miami may have been the teen they found on I-95.

FHP troopers took the teen to the North Miami police station where he was reunited with his mother.

Miller, told Zea she was cooking breakfast and he must have snuck out. The FHP said no charges will be filed.

Reynoso hopes the fellow mother will be more careful in the future.

"I don't blame her, but at the same time maybe this is a lesson to be learned that she needs to put a little bit more eyes on her son....Something worse could have come out of this if we weren't there."