ST.Mom Sues School District After Nonverbal Son with Autism, 7, Climbs Out of Window, Walks to Busy Road

A Kentucky mom is suing her local school district for negligence after her son, who has autism, left his classroom and ended up in a busy road, “entirely unnoticed” by school officials.

“It was the worst day of my life,” Leslie Weston told LEX18 about the day last November, when her seven-year-old son, who has autism and is predominantly nonverbal, climbed out the window of his classroom at Meadowthorpe Elementary and ended up in the middle of one of Lexington’s busiest roads.

According to a lawsuit reviewed by PEOPLE that Weston filed against the district, her son is in the school’s moderate to severe disability, or MSD, classroom, where he has a “well-documented and known fixation” with the window. However, the lawsuit claims that the window was not locked on Nov. 17, and instead, “the window in the MSD classroom was left open and unattended.”

Fayette County Public Schools told PEOPLE, “We do not provide statements on pending litigations.”

That’s when her son went “entirely unnoticed by any of the adults in the MSD classroom, [and] climbed out the open window and exited the building,” per the lawsuit.

The child ran around the school yard — visible on security cameras, the complaint says — before he climbed through a hole in the fence onto the busy nearby road. Multiple drivers called the police to report the unattended child running along the shoulder of the road.

He was eventually noticed by officers from animal control, who were able to take the child to the hospital, where he was terrified, had an elevated heart rate, and was vomiting. At this point, no child had been reported missing, but as the lawsuit claims, hospital staff noticed he “was chewing on a ‘Recess’ sticker and decided to call Meadowthorpe Elementary nearby to see if they were missing a student.”

The complaint claims “Child Protective Services  (“CPS”) conducted an investigation, and findings of abandonment, supervision neglect, and threat  of physical abuse have been substantiated based on this investigation.”

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Weston claims her son has “sustained severe and permanent injuries and damage” and told LEX18, “My mind just went straight for the worst because this is my biggest fear and I’ve always thought, ‘What if that happens?’ or you see news stories and you’re like, ‘I hope that never happens to my son,’ and then it did.”

“It was all of my worst fears coming to life.”