Autistic teen found safe at Midtown bar

A MISSING AUTISTIC teen from Yonkers was found after an hours-long search that ended at an Irish pub in Midtown, police said Sunday.

Mel Harris tried to enter the Mean Fiddler on W. 47th St., near Eighth Ave., around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, cops said.

A bouncer recognized Mel as the 15-year-old who vanished from a Yonkers bike trail.

Jorge Santiago told the Daily News he saw Mel peeking into the bar through a window.

“When he noticed that we noticed him, that’s when he walked away,” he said.

Santiago and his co-worker, Tyrone, followed Mel down 47th St. toward Broadway and stopped him outside the Brooks Atkinson Theatre next door.

“I said, ‘Hey,’ and that’s when I grabbed him,” he said, adding he needed his colleague’s help holding the boy because he had “super strength for such a small kid.”

“He was screaming and scratching,” Santiago said, at one point crying out, “Why did you have to notice me?”

He calmed down when cops arrived, Santiago said.

Santiago said discovering the teen was surreal after seeing his face on TV. “When I was watching the news, I prayed nothing would happen to him,” Santiago said.

The teen was reported missing Saturday after being last seen entering the South County Trailway, which spans about 14 miles through Westchester County.

He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was reunited with his family.