Terrifying dashcam footage captured the moment a four-year-old boy, dressed only in a diaper and tank top, ran into a busy intersection.
Newly released footage shows cars speeding down a residential street in Staten Island, New York, on June 19, with a small figure holding an iPad running behind them, directly in the middle of the road.
There were no parents running after the boy as he headed toward the intersection of Harold Street and Sunset Avenue.
Fortunately, a quick-reacting Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus driver came to the boy’s rescue.
Peter Warner stopped the bus and is seen in dashcam footage getting out of his vehicle and picking up the boy in his arms.
Dashcam footage captured the moment a four-year-old boy ran down the middle of a busy street in Staten Island, New York
Cars sped by on the street as the boy ran, with no parent following him.
“I actually blocked the intersection with the bus,” Warner said. told to ABC 7‘I went out, secured my bus and took the baby into my custody.’
“If the boy had been running down the sidewalk, I would have imagined his parents would have been chasing him, but he was in the middle of the street, right in the middle of the road,” she added.
Warner was then seen attempting to make phone calls on her cell phone in an apparent attempt to call for emergency help, while holding the child in one arm.
While waiting for help to arrive at the scene, Warner carried the boy onto the bus and sat him in the front of the vehicle.
Meanwhile, outside the bus a good Samaritan could be seen directing traffic around the stopped vehicle.
The video ends with a marked NYPD car arriving at the scene.
Peter Warner, an MTA bus driver, sprang into action, stopped his bus and grabbed the boy.
Warner, a father of two, said he tried to use the boy’s iPad to communicate with his parents but found it was restricted. according to the Staten Island Advance.
He then tried to take the boy’s hand to see if the boy would guide them to his house, but to no avail.
Meanwhile, police patrolled the area to see if they could find any distressed parents looking for their child, but they found nothing either.
In total, Warner had custody of the boy for 45 minutes before NYPD officers took him to a local police station.
But before he left, the boy wanted another hug from Warner, a tender moment that was captured by one of the bus passengers.
He was seen trying to call for help with the child still in his arms.
Warner said he tried to locate the children’s parents but was unsuccessful.
About an hour later, police said the parents picked up the boy from the station and Warner said he believes a post on a community Facebook page played a role in notifying the boy’s mother that her son was on the loose.
It turned out the boy was four blocks from his home and had managed to wander away while his father was sleeping and his mother was at work, ABC 7 reports.
“She gave me a big hug and thanked me over and over again, and she texts me all the time,” Warner said of the mother’s response.
“Every time I post pictures of my kids, we become friends on Facebook and she comments on my kids’ games and stuff like that,” he said. “So we became friends.”
Warner, a father of two, 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 after the accident.
“There’s a lot of things that happen during the day that we don’t notice,” he told the Staten Island Advance.
‘Drivers do a lot every day to help people, and every once in a while, something like this happens, where it’s really a miracle that nothing happened to that child.
“Thank God he (Warner) caught up with him and thank God he stopped and did what he had to do because, you know, I don’t know if everybody would do that,” Casella added.
