Dubai: Dubai Police have helped a special needs boy who locked himself inside a bathroom reportedly due to his emotional situation, police said.
Brigadier Kamil Butti Al Suwaidi, director-general of the Department of Operation Affairs, said they received a “strange” call recently from a person trying to speak but they couldn’t understand him, “We guessed he is a little boy but we couldn’t understand what he was saying as he wasn’t clear and then he ended the call,” Brigadier Al Suwaidi said.
The policeman, who received the call, tried to ascertain the situation when the boy ended the phone call and later located his place and the name under which the phone number was registered.
When the police called the house, the boy’s elder brother told them that the boy had locked himself inside the bathroom and refused to open it despite his family kept speaking to him.
Brigadier Al Suwaidi said: “The brother told us that his sibling was facing some mental and physical disability and he was having a bad emotional situation when he locked himself inside the bathroom.”
The policeman called the boy again on his number, started a conversation and then convinced him to open the bathroom door, “Our policemen in the operations room have excellent skills in communicating with people in whatever situation they are in. The policeman was kind with the boy and calmed him down until he opened the door.”
Dubai Police said that they contacted the boy’s mother later and she told them that her son wanted to visit the police’s operations room and thank the police officer who spoke with him.
Dubai Police said that they received 369 calls from special needs people last year.
“We save the data of all special needs people in Dubai, their addresses and phone numbers. If anyone of them calls the operations room, then we identify his location and provide necessary help even if they don’t speak during the call and send an ambulance [if needed]. Nearly 8,000 special needs people are connected to the police’s operations room,” Brigadier Al Suwaidi added.
