"Oh my gosh," said Kathy foster.
She is full of excitement now that her son is back home.
"...Words can't describe how you feel when he's missing," she said. "Words can't describe how I felt when he came up the sidewalk, the driveway."
Kathy says the quick response from Frederick County's Sheriff's Office helped her gain confidence that her son would return. James was last seen at 4:00 a.m. She called 911 around 7:30.
"They were here within two minutes," she said.
"Every minute that goes by, that's the further away that that person can get," said Al Sibert, captain of Frederick County's Investigations Division.
He says when deputies arrive, they conduct a first immediate response, asking a number of questions to get as much information as possible about the missing person.
"The first immediate response is very important in any missing persons report, no matter rather it's an adult, a 70-year-old adult suffering from dementia, or a 3-year-old child that may have been abducted riding their little bicycle or walking around in the front yard," he said.
The method is the same regardless of things like mental health status, or the reason they are missing. Captain Sibert says the priority is always to find that person as soon as possible. "Why would we wait 24 hours," said Captain Sibert. "That's just much harder to find that individual."
This is the second time James has ran away from home. The first time, his mother was able to find him. Kathy says she's hoping that there won't be a third. "I said never do this again," she said.
© Copyright 2013 TV3 Winchester / Gray Television Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.