Fire & Rescue
Seven-year-old left school building, reached nearby highway before rescue; district settles lawsuit
Lexington/Fayette County, Kentucky — A 7-year-old student slipped out of Meadowthorpe Elementary School in Fayette County on Nov. 17, 2025, and made his way to New Circle Road before an animal control team rescued him, school and legal records show.
The chld, who is on the autism spectrum and is mostly non-verbal, was later the subject of a lawsuit against the school district that has been settled.
According to a personnel investigation and surveillance footage, the boy crawled out of a window headfirst at 12:33 p.m. He was seen on video running toward the back of the upper parking lot near the fence line at 12:51 p.m., the last recorded image on the school’s system.
A staff member appears on video searching at 12:52 p.m.; the school resource officer was not notified until 1:14 p.m., roughly 41 minutes after the chld left the building. Fayette County Public Schools paid $300,000 to settle the lawsuit.
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