Ozzy Osbourne’s Music Helps Locate Missing Autistic Child

From shock-rocker to reality television to … search and rescue? No, Ozzy Osbourne hasn't really gotten a new job, but the singer was, in a way, responsible for saving a lost 8-year-old this week in California. More specifically, it was his 1991 song 'No More Tears' that brought Joshua Robb out of hiding.

Robb, who's described by his father Ron Robb as severely autistic, slipped through the metal bars of a fence at his elementary school in Twin Peaks, Calif. on Monday. NBC reports that the kid fled into the woods as staff members tried to chase him down.

Temperatures were expected to reach the low 60's that night, and search and rescue teams were worried the boy -- dressed only in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt -- wouldn't know how to care for himself. Enter Ozzy Osbourne.

Along with a song called 'Good Time' by country singer Alan Jackson, Osbourne's 'No More Tears' was blasted over a loud speaker. The older Robb suggested this as alarms and bullhorns would scare the child into hiding, but hearing his two favorite songs might coax him into eyesight. It worked. “I heard them blaring ‘No More Tears’ and it was a very short time after that, we heard the rescuers had found him,” Ron Robb says.

Joshua Robb was a mile or so away from where he’d last been spotted, and rescuers had to lower a basket into a steep ravine to bring the child to safety. He was grateful. “He walked toward them and said, ‘Thank you. You saved me,’” Lt. Rick Els of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department says.

Ozzy Osbourne hasn't commented on being indirectly responsible for saving an 8-year-old boy, but his wife Sharon suggested the rocker would be very moved. “He’ll probably start crying because of the picture of that little boy with his school jacket,” she says.