A teenager with autism who had been separated from his family's helper was thankfully reunited with his family with the help of a good samaritan at VivoCity recently.

His mother, Clara, shared the incident and her gratitude via the Facebook group Friends of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) Families, on Oct. 6.

Separated from helper at MRT platform

Clara's 15-year-old son, David, was on his way to Eden School — a special education school at Bukit Batok for students with autism — with his helper.

Rushing for the train at Punggol MRT however, David and his helper were separated when the doors closed after the latter entered the train without the boy.

Although the helper frantically gestured for David to wait for her, the teen was gone by the time she returned to the platform.

Clara said that the helper was confident of David's ability to make his way to school on his own, and hoped to find him at the platform where they would typically change trains.

When she reached that platform though, he was nowhere to be found, and she eventually turned to seek help from SMRT staff after searching in vain.

Son found at VivoCity

Meanwhile, as Clara was making a police report, she received a call from Eden School informing her that a member of the public had found her son at the Basement 2 level of VivoCity, near Toast Box.

That member of public was a safe entry officer named Wei Xiang, Clara revealed in her post, and he played an "instrumental role" in reuniting her with her son.

Wei Xiang was apparently reporting for work when he noticed David with another VivoCity safe entry officer, and proceeded to call the school.

"Wei Xiang had a sense that David might need help and tried to look at David’s lanyard but could not find any contact numbers. However, he had the presence of mind to identify David as a student of Eden school through his school uniform and quickly searched for the school’s telephone number to make the call."

The man also accompanied David while waiting for his mother and the police to arrive.

While waiting, he helped David connect his iPad to the WiFi as the teen had been fidgeting with the device.

He also managed to guess from David's gestures that the teen wanted to eat. Despite being unable to communicate with David properly, he bought him a meal after searching online for images of food and letting the latter point to what he wanted.

In her post, Clara said she barely had time to thank the man as the police were noting down her statement, and only managed to do so via a call to him afterwards.

She said that it was "truly remarkable" that Wei Xiang persisted in helping a youth who could not communicate well.

"What a wonderful world it would be if more people have such a heart of gold!" she said.

She added that during this pandemic, she hopes more people would empathise and reach out to those who might not be adhering to safe management measures.

You can read her full post here.

Top photo from Kenty Wong / Google Maps