Cops Save Mother & Toddler Trapped in Car After Hit and Run, Watch Rescue Unfold in Video
Nothing gets your heart pounding like a traffic accident. Even minor fender-benders can be incredibly stressful situations.
Certainly, physical damage to a vehicle is one reason for the escalation in adrenaline. But that’s nothing compared to the potential for human harm.
Hit-and-run accidents are especially grievous. Whether out of fear or defiance, perpetrators don’t even stop to see whether anyone was injured in the automobile they struck.
One hit-and-run incident that recently occurred in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was particularly intense. A witness said that the car in question collided with a vehicle hard enough to flip it over — then simply took off.
Fortunately, the car flipped right in front of two nearby policemen. Milwaukee Officers Thomas Kresa and Michael Ward were out on patrol when they witnessed the occurrence and rushed right over to assist.
Distressing body cam footage shared by Inside Edition has quickly gone viral. It shows the officers shouting to a young woman in the front seat.
“Try to unlock your doors!” they yelled. What they didn’t initially realize was that the car also held a 17-month-old toddler.
Due to vehicular impact, the mother and child were actually trapped inside.
“I didn’t hear a child until she said there was [a] child in the car,” Kresa told WTMJ-TV. “But she was pretty frantic.”
The video snippet shows both officers repeatedly banging and kicking the front window in a desperate attempt to reach the pair. Understandably, the distraught mother simply kept calling for someone to help her baby.
Finally, the officers managed to break through the glass. They immediately scooped up the little boy, who was clad in a Spider-Man t-shirt.
Both mother and child were crying loudly. “Mama’s coming,” one of the officers kept repeating to help calm the hysterical youngster.
But police also reassured the panicked parent. “We are going to take care of him, okay,” said Ward.
The officers told WTMJ-TV they were completely focused on freeing the vehicle’s occupants. They said the possibility of a car fire didn’t even cross their minds as they struggled to reach the interior.
“In my head I don’t know if I was all that calm, but I just wanted to get into the vehicle and make sure everyone was alright,” said Ward.
In the end, the mother and child were taken to a nearby hospital and wound up being fine. Inside Edition also indicated that police eventually caught the driver who struck their vehicle.
As recognition for their heroic rescue, Kresa and Ward were presented with a Meritorious Service Award. But both officers maintain they were simply responding to the call of duty.
“I’m honored to be called a hero,” Ward said. “I think a lot of us know what we need to do when we take the job.”
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