ST. PAUL, Minn. — A police officer pulled a 5-year-old boy from a pond Monday after a docked department drone reached the scene ahead of responding officers and directed them to the child's location.

CBS Minnesota reported that someone called 911 at about 1:30 p.m. after seeing a child struggling in a pond behind the East Side Boys & Girls Club. The Saint Paul Police Department launched one of its docked drones, which arrived about two minutes before officers reached the pond.

Officer Adisak Sae Ma entered the water and brought the boy to safety. Police said the child was taken to Children's Hospital for evaluation and that no injuries were reported.

A remote view that gave officers a head start

Sgt. Matt St. Sauver piloted the drone from more than three miles away, according to CBS Minnesota. From that live overhead view, he relayed the boy's exact position and condition to officers converging on the pond.

Sae Ma told the station that the boy was panicking and that he saw the child's head go underwater. St. Sauver said the drone's role was to give responding officers better information so they could make faster decisions at the water's edge.

A separate FOX 9 interview with Sae Ma and St. Sauver, posted Wednesday, independently identifies both officers and describes the same sequence: the docked drone arrived two minutes before ground officers, located the child and supplied critical information for the rescue.

The child was found before the emergency became a tragedy

Family members told police that the boy, who has autism, had wandered away from home without their knowledge, CBS Minnesota reported. ThinBlueNews is not publishing the child's name, home location, hospital records or any additional identifying detail.

The account underscores two parts of the response. A member of the public recognized a child in distress and called 911, while the department's aerial view narrowed the search area before officers arrived. Sae Ma then reached the boy as he was struggling to remain above water.

The rescue also occurred as St. Paul officials were debating whether to expand the police drone program. CBS Minnesota reported that the City Council declined Wednesday to support adding more drones without further addressing residents' privacy concerns. The council decision and the successful rescue are separate facts; the available reporting does not establish that one determined the other.

What the verified public record establishes

The City of Saint Paul's official police page confirms the identity of the civilian municipal department. The incident facts in this report come from the two current local-news accounts, each of which directly identifies the responding officers and attributes the rescue details to St. Paul police.

The public record establishes the 911 call, approximate time and public location, the drone's arrival advantage, St. Sauver's remote role, Sae Ma's water rescue, the hospital evaluation and the reported absence of injuries. ThinBlueNews is not making medical claims beyond those reports or speculating about the family's circumstances.

For the officers and caller, the outcome was measured in minutes: spot the emergency, locate the child, relay the position and reach him before he disappeared beneath the water.

Sources and visual disclosure

Source boundary: CBS Minnesota supplies the detailed incident timeline and police-attributed outcome. FOX 9 independently identifies the officers and corroborates the drone-assisted sequence through an on-camera interview. The city page corroborates agency identity, not each incident detail.

Visual note: the featured image is a ThinBlueNews-owned editorial illustration. It is not incident footage, a photograph of the child or officers, a view of the exact pond, or a reconstruction of the rescue. No person, likeness or documentary scene was synthesized.

If an agency representative or reader sees anything that should be corrected or updated, please contact ThinBlueNews through our corrections and editorial standards page.