Ex-Con Saves Baby Crawling Toward Highway

Stays with her for 2 hours, soothes her with gospel music
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 18, 2014 1:44 PM CDT
Ex-Con Saves Baby Crawling Toward Highway
Stock image   (Shutterstock)

During the 10 years he spent in federal prison for manufacturing cocaine, Bryant Collins "made a very conscientious effort to change" his life, he says. And five years after getting out, he's officially a hero: On Friday, he noticed a baby on the side of a Georgia highway. "I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought it was a baby," Collins tells WXIA. "I just stopped and, when I got out, there was a baby." He picked up the 15-month-old girl and called 911.

She was basically fine—"Honestly that's almost a miracle: that a 15-month-old can go that far from her house, into the woods, fall down an embankment, wind up near a major highway, and really not get hurt that bad," says the Madison County sheriff—and Collins stayed with her for two hours, soothing her when she cried. "I turned my phone on and let her listen to some gospel music, and she calmed right down," he says. Her father was arrested after arriving at the scene and "scuffling" with police, NBC News reports; her mother may be arrested on neglect charges as well. They tell WXIA they had left little Emily inside in the care of older siblings while they were in the backyard, and say they called 911 when they realized she wandered off. (More uplifting news stories.)

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