Key-coded locks provide extra security for families with autism

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota mother is on a mission to protect children with autism and ease the burden on their families.
Sheletta Brundidge has three children with autism.
She says her 9-year-old son, Daniel, has tried to escape the house at every possible chance for most of his life, a very common impulse for kids with autism.
“It is exhausting mentally, it is draining physically, where you are constantly having to be one step ahead of your child,” Brundidge said.
Brundidge says there have been some frightening close calls, like once when Daniel got out of her parents’ home in Texas.
“He is running full speed, flapping his hands and just having a good old time, heading to a four-lane highway where cars were going 50-60 miles per hour in Houston, Texas,” she said. “Thankfully, I was able to catch him before he got there because he wouldn’t have stopped.”
Then a few years ago, Brundidge came across key-coded door locks for inside the house that cost about $30.
She calls them a game-changer for keeping Daniel inside and safe.
“We’ve turned the house into Fort Knox,” Brundidge said.
She now holds giveaways to get the locks to all families with autism.
It started when a missing 4-year-old boy in Hopkins drowned this summer.
This weekend, an 11-year-old boy escaped his home in Eden Prairie and also drowned.
Brundidge has handed out nearly 600 of the locks for no charge, and another giveaway is in the works.
“It takes the anxiety and the fear and the worry away that my child may try to escape from the house,” she said. “These are not just locks. These are lives saved.”
The locks can also be opened with regular keys in case of an emergency or a dead battery.
For added security for her son, Brundidge uses a system that makes different sounds when different doors are opened.