If you’re anything like me, you’ll have spent a deal of time over the years wondering how you might react in a life-or-death situation.
My best guess is that we all like to believe we’d be that hero who charges into the flames to save a mother and her babies from a burning building, who scales the side of an apartment building to rescue a toddler dangling from the seventh-floor balcony, who crosses the thin sheet of ice to ensure the safety of the stranded dog in the middle of the lake.
We all like to think we’re that person. But the truth is we never really know how we’ll react in any given situation until we’re thrust into it without prior warning.
Fortunately, two locomotive operators in Westchester County, New York were able to channel their inner-heroes and save a young boy on the verge of wandering onto a set of live train tracks.
As per reports, Marcus Higgins and William Kennedy were going about their jobs as usual when they came upon a scene that very nearly changed their lives forever…
Kennedy, a locomotive engineer, spotted a young boy dangerously close to the Metro-North Railroad tracks close to Tarrytown, New York.
According to WABC, the boy had strayed onto the rail track and was edging closer to the electrified third rail.
Kennedy, a father himself, said he instantly went into “daddy mode” and stopped his train, which was traveling at 70mph.
“I got four kids so as soon as I saw it was a child, instantly ‘daddy’ kicked in and [I thought], ‘We gotta save this kid,'” Kennedy explained.
No sooner had Kennedy managed to slow his train than did he radio team members for help. Marcus Higgins, who was in another train heading in the opposite direction.
The boy on the tracks, Waylon, is reportedly on the autism spectrum and nonverbal.
The two locomotive engineers did their best to distract Waylon, who was moving between rails, clambering over them.
“I’m screaming and trying to wave in this direction, like, go the other way. But, you don’t know how young he was,” Higgins said.
Ultimately, Wiggins was forced to get out of his train, run to Waylon’s rescue, and get the boy onto another train to take him to a station. The toddler’s mother, Aridia Bruno DeSosa, said her son had tumbled over a wall and landed by the tracks.
“That was a miracle from God,” she said of Wiggins and Kennedy’s rescue.
According to reports, Waylon escaped the incident with only a splinter in his hand to show for his troubles.
Watch the daring rescue below:
Thank God these two men leapt into action when called upon. As a parent myself, I can only imagine how Waylon’s mother must have felt.
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