MESA, Ariz. (KPHO/Gray News) – A woman saved a toddler who was walking in the middle of an intersection.
The rescue was captured on a dash camera.
“I was scared. It was not something I expected to experience that evening,” said the woman, who wished to remain anonymous.
In the video, cars pass the toddler as he runs toward oncoming traffic. The woman approaches the boy, grabs him and takes him to safety.
“At that moment. I was in shock. I was shaking all the time,” she said.
She said she took a different route to pick up her daughter and saw the little boy all alone.
“My heart dropped. “I was actually on the phone with my husband and hung up, opened the door and ran over,” she said.
She said it was dark and she heard screaming but didn’t know where it came from.
KPHO interviewed the driver whose dashcam captured the incident. The driver said she had her son in the backseat and said she screamed because she thought she was about to witness a little boy being “crushed.”
The woman who saved the child said she focused on the child and did not consider her safety.
“I think my priority at that moment was just to save that baby, to grab that baby,” she said.
The video shows the boy jumping up and down as the woman moves towards him. She said he thought it was a game, unaware of the danger coming his way.
“I talked to him softly, not yelling or screaming, because kids don’t really understand that. I kept saying, ‘Baby, come here, come to me.’ And he was jumping and his arms were in the air. When I saw that white car, I grabbed him right then and there so he was closer to me now,” she said.
As she pulled him to safety, she said another woman held the boy’s nine-month-old brother, who was found crawling on a sidewalk near their home.
Both boys were unharmed.
The woman said she doesn’t feel like a hero.
“My husband will probably tell you this. I’ll give you the last cent I have. I work in the medical field and I think that’s just my nature, to be honest,” she said.
The boy’s father declined KPHO’s request to be interviewed on camera.
The father said his wife was watching over the boys and they were napping when she stepped outside for a moment.
He said she suffered from postpartum depression and forgot to lock the door when she went out.
Child Protective Services has allowed the mother to be with their children, the father said, but the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating and plans to file endangerment charges.
The woman who saved the toddler hopes the mother will get help to overcome her health condition.
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