News

Actions

Man saves child found crawling along highway

Posted at 9:34 AM, Jun 17, 2014
and last updated 2014-06-17 09:34:58-04

MADISON COUNTY, Georgia -  A man saved a 15-month-old child he found crawling along a Georgia highway, according to a report on  11Alive.com.

Bryant Collins said he spotted the child out of the corner of his eye while driving Friday.

"I thought it was a baby," Collins said. "I just stopped and, when I got out, there was a baby, almost in the highway."

Turns out the child had crawled 300 yards from her home home, through the woods and nearly onto Highway 72.

Collins stayed with the child, soothing her,  for nearly two hours.

"The baby started crying," Collins said, "so I turned my phone on and let her listen to some gospel music, and she calmed right down."

The child was not seriously hurt. Police arrested the child's father and said charges would likely be filed against her mother too.

Collins said he could never have saved the child if he had not, long ago, saved his own.

"I did 10 years in the federal institution for manufacturing cocaine," he said. "When I was in prison, I made a very conscientious effort to change, and I did."

Collins has been free and clean for five years. And it was in his new job, as an auto repairman, that he found himself on the side of the road, a baby's life literally in his hands.