Boy Saved in Alabama Hostage Standoff — How Ethan Is Doing Now?

Last Tuesday 65 year old Jimmy Lee Dykes got on a Dale County school bus and demanded the driver hand over two children. Ethan was saved yesterday but, how is he doing and how will he fare out?

The brave bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., refused to let him on and while holding off Dykes, 21 of the children got off the bus through the emergency exit. The gunman killed Poland, then grabbed the 6 year old Ethan who has Asperger's, which is a form of autism, before taking the boy inside a nearby bunker he had built himself.

Over the last few days it was hard for police to go in and save Ethan because they weren’t familiar with this homemade bunker of Dykes. They also couldn’t figure out what he wanted or why he did it. Dykes was seen with a gun most of the time but, yesterday Dykes was killed during the save.

But, how is Ethan doing now?

According to CNN, "It's very hard to tell how he's going to do. On the one hand, he might get right back to his routine and do absolutely fine. But on the other hand, the anxieties, the trauma, what we call an acute stress disorder even post traumatic stress symptoms can occur”, said Louis Krouse, a psychiatrist at Chicago's Rush Medical Center.

State Rep. Steve Clouse says “A typical 5-year-old child would find this frightening. But with a child with Asperger's, which is a form of autism .We have to make sure that we get him back to his normal routines and that if the anxiety levels are overwhelming, to treat those."