Jeff Blackburn was driving his garbage truck on his regular route in Seattle when he saw a woman jogging with a baby in a pram, TV network Komo 4 reports.
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The mother turned the pram sideways at the top of a hill and moved away to talk to some other women when the stroller took off, he said.
“She was on a hill and almost immediately when she turned the corner the stroller started to turn and roll down the hill,” Mr Blackburn said.
“So I started honking the horn and speeding up so I could catch up to it before it got to the intersection, because at the bottom of the hill was a busy intersection with stop signs.”
Blackburn acted quickly to avert disaster. He honked the horn of his truck repeatedly, attracting the attention of a FedEx truck that stopped in time. Quick thinking, he used his big truck to block traffic so the intersection was free for the stroller to roll across safely.
He then jumped out of his truck and ran across the road just in time to stop the stroller as it bumped over a curb.
He told KOMO4: “When I got to the bottom, I hit the brake, got out of the truck and tried to grab it. Luckily when I was honking the horn, a FedEx truck was going through the intersection and stopped because he heard the horn honking.”
The video shows a woman giving a helping hand with the rescue effort.
The boy was rescued unhurt and and it seems he had enjoyed the roll down the hill. Blackburn told KOMO4: “He seemed to be having a great time rolling down the hill… he seemed to enjoy it.”
The frantic woman arrived seconds later.
“She came running in — she was freaked out and was shaking and… I don’t even think she said anything, she just grabbed the kid and ran away,” Blackburn said. “She was just really, really shook up.”
He says he was in the right place at the right time because the FedEx truck going through the intersection would likely have never seen the stroller had it not been for all the horn honking.
Blackburn was asked if he had seen anything before in the three years he’s been on the route.
“No, this is the first. People usually hold on to their children,” he laughed.
