6-Year Old Boy With Autism Drowns in St. Francis County

(St. Francis County, AR) A 6-year old with autism wandered away from home in St. Francis County and drowned Sunday.

The child was found by his father in a nearby fishing pond.

There are more questions than answers about the drowning.

No one seems to know how 6-year-old Chance Anderson wandered away from his front yard on County Road 536 and ended up in the pond almost two football fields away.

The boy’s father told deputies he found his son in the water, pulled him out and started CPR.

But it was too late.

Jay Wright says the pond is owned by his brother, who has a son about the same age as Chance, “I thought it was my nephew at the time I got the call.”

Wright says he wasted no time going to the scene, “Of course I panicked. And once I got over there we found out that it was not kin folks, but it was a six-year-old boy who had lost his life.”

Wright says he was heartbroken for the family. 

It was an accident Jay Wright tries to erase from his memory, but says he can’t.

He’ll always remember the look of pain on the face of Chance Anderson’s father, the man who tried, but was unable to save his son’s life, “I seen a man that came down the gravel road that looked really, really sad. And I assumed that was his father. I never did get to speak with him, but I assume that was his father the way he was acting.”

St. Francis County Sheriff’s investigators have determined the drowning was an accident and there was no “foul play” in the child’s death.