Terrifying dashcam footage caught the moment a four-year-old in just a diaper and tank top ran into a busy intersection.
The recently-released footage shows cars whizzing down a residential street in Staten Island, New York on June 19 – with a small figure clutching an iPad running behind them, directly in the middle of the road.
There were no parents running after the boy as he made his way into the intersection of Harold Street and Sunset Avenue.Â
Fortunately, a quick-thinking Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus driver came to the young boy’s rescue.Â
Peter Warner stopped the bus and was seen in the dashcam footage stepping out of his vehicle and scooping up the child in his arms.
Dashcam footage caught the moment a four year old ran down the middle of a busy street in Staten Island, New York
Cars whizzed down the street as the boy ran, without any parents following him
‘I actually blocked the intersection with the bus,’ Warner recounted to ABC 7. ‘I got out, secured my bus, took the baby in my custody.
‘If the kid was running down the sidewalk, I would figure that the parents would be chasing him, but he was in the middle of the street – dead smack in the middle of the street,’ he added.Â
Warner was then seen trying to make phone calls on his cellphone in an apparent attempt to summon emergency assistance, while holding the child in one arm.
As he waited for help to arrive on the scene, Warner carried the toddler inside the bus and sat him down in front of the vehicle.
Meanwhile, a good Samaritan could be seen outside the bus directing traffic around the stopped vehicle.Â
The video ends with the arrival of a marked NYPD car at the scene.
Peter Warner, an MTA bus driver, sprang into action, stopping his bus and grabbing the child
Warner, a father-of-two himself, said he tried to use the boy’s iPad to contact his parents – but found that it was restricted, according to the Staten Island Advance.
He then attempted to hold the child’s hand to see if the boy would lead them to his house, but to no avail.
Police, meanwhile, circled the area to see if they could find any distressed parents searching for their son – but they too came up empty.
In total, Warner maintained custody of the boy for 45 minutes before NYPD officers took the boy to a local precinct.
But before he left, the boy wanted another hug from Warner – a tender moment that was captured by one of the passengers on the bus.
He was seen trying to call for assistance with the young boy still in his arms
Warner said he tried to locate the boys’ parents – but to no avail
It was about an hour later that police said the parents picked up the boy from the precinct, with Warner saying he believes a post on a community Facebook page played a major role in notifying the boy’s mother that her son was on the loose.
It turned out that the boy was four blocks from his home, and had managed to wander off while his father was asleep and his mother was at work, ABC 7 reports.
‘She gave me a big hug and thanked me up and down, and she messages me all the time,’ Warner said of the mother’s response.
‘Every time I post pictures of my kids now, we’re friendly on Facebook, and she comments on my kids’ pitches and stuff like that,’ he said. ‘So we made a friendship out of it.’Â
Warner, a father of two himself, said he and the boy’s mother have since become friends
Daniel Casella, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 726, applauded Warner’s efforts in the aftermath.
‘A lot of things go on during the day that doesn’t get noticed,’ he told the Staten Island Advance.
‘The drivers, they do a lot everyday to help people, and every once in a while, then you get one like this, where it’s really a miracle nothing happened to this kid.
‘Thank God he [Warner] came upon him and thank God he stopped and did what he had to do because, you know, I don’t know that everyone would do that,’ Casella added.Â
