Baby Crawling Along Georgia Highway Saved By Man Who Turned His Life Around

A baby crawls near a highway in Georgia and is rescued by a man who turned his life around for the better.

11 Alive in Atlanta reports that the 15-month-old baby had crawled from her home 300 yards away, went through a wooded area, and onto a grassy section along Highway 72 last Friday. Bryant Collins, who rescued the little girl, tells 11 Alive’s Matt Pearl that he’s been in a “lot of bad situations,” but seeing a baby crawling somewhere like that was something he couldn’t believe:

“I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought it was a baby. I just stopped and, when I got out, there was a baby … almost in the highway.”

Collins saved the baby from crawling onto the busy highway and says his reaction is what anyone else’s would have been seeing a child so close to a dangerous spot without anyone around. After he dialed 911 and emergency crews arrive on the scene, police arrest Timothy Pickens, the baby’s father. The mother will reportedly be arrested, too.

Madison County sheriff Kip Thomas says the baby didn’t suffer any real injuries:

“Everything was pretty much superficial that we saw. Honestly that’s almost a miracle; that a 15-month-old can go that far from her house, into the woods, fall down an embankment, wind up near a major highway, and really not get hurt that bad.”

Collins stayed with the baby two hours and soothed her cries with music from his cell phone:

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

Collins tells a brief story of his background after saving the baby crawling near the highway:

“I did ten years in the federal institution for manufacturing cocaine. When I was in prison, I made a very conscientious effort to change, and I did.”

Bryant Collins has been out of prison and clean of drugs for five years. His job as auto technician put him in the right place at the right time to save a little girl from being badly harmed or likely killed.

ABC News adds that authorities were told by the girl’s mother that she and her husband “left the house and their other children, ages 13, 9 and 5, were supposed to be watching the baby.”

[Image via Matt Pearl/WXIA-TV]