A missing boy is home safe with his family thanks to a program that sends missing child phone alerts to the public. An Omaha woman who received an alert found him.

When the 7-year-old autistic boy disappeared Tuesday afternoon, Omaha Police sent the alert to A Child Is Missing, a national program that in turn sent out an alert to most published phone numbers in the area where the boy was last seen.

That included a woman who had registered her cell phone and spotted the missing boy at 72nd and Farnam.

Little Sophia isn't walking quite yet, but that's not stopping her mom Tara Krepela from putting herself in the shoes of a mother whose child did walk away from home on Tuesday.

"I just spent a few extra minutes just playing with her with letters on the refrigerator thinking oh my gosh, I'm so glad that wasn't my kid."

Krepela was driving home from work when she spotted the boy. "When he was walking across the street he was sucking on his blanket."

“I felt bad when I saw him and drove away thinking I probably could have done something more so it was awesome that I actually got a phone call saying that, all the information for him."

"Not even a minute-and-a-half later I got a call from the Amber Alert system on my cell and it left a description of the boy.” So she notified police.

The call from A Child Is Missing sounded like this. "We are currently searching for a missing child in your area. We need your help, please check your yard, complex or vehicle and if you have any information about Jane Doe..."

"It left the description of the boy, where he was last seen, it left the police department’s phone number so I just called them back on my way back home," said Krepela.

Law enforcement agencies call the group when someone is lost. "We give them all the specific information about the child, his last whereabouts, anything that we know," said Omaha Police Officer Bill Dropinski.

The group determines how far the missing person could have traveled and then sends out a recorded message to most published phone numbers in that radius and any cell phones registered with its call list.

"So if we can get this information to thousands of people that are helping us look for this individual then our chances go way up of finding them safely," said Officer Dropinski.

The boy came home with a police escort. “Oh Timmy, where have you been?" Timmy didn't understand the commotion. "Oh my God, oh my God, Timmy."

His foster family is grateful for the neighbors’ legwork and police expertise. "He was reunited with his parents,” said Omaha Police Lt. Ed Reyes. “It has a very good ending.”

"It felt like a higher power knew I was the right person to see the boy and that I would be the one to call back," said Krepela. "A lot of people might not have even answered their phone if they didn't recognize the number."

Omaha Police joined A Child Is Missing in 2006 along with other agencies like the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, Council Bluffs Police and Ralston Police. It's a free service to the agencies, paid for with federal money.

If you want to get the alerts, they will go out to published land lines in the missing person's area, but if you're on the Do Not Call list or if you have a cell phone, you must register the number.