What do you think of whenever you hear of a tragic incident involving a child who wandered off? Do you try to picture the child or the parents? Do you instantly want to know how something like that could have happened? Do you start passing judgment on those responsible?
Or rather, let's pretend that you spot a very young child standing on the street and simply kept driving by. Would you feel guilty for not stopping if you later heard that the child was hurt?
During my time as a news reporter, I was fortunate enough to not come across any grisly scenes of little children killed by traffic after wandering into the street. However, yesterday evening I was front and center to what could have been a very tragic event. And all of the above questions were racing through my head.
Around 7:00 Sunday night I was driving down Parmer Lane, heading to my usual softball game at Walnut Creek Park. Traffic was heavy and the flow of cars and trucks were running at a pretty healthy clip of about 50 mph. Following right behind me was my friend and teammate, John. As we approached the side street we were meant to turn right onto, we glided into the shoulder and started to slow down. Just as I was about to turn the wheel to make my turn, I suddenly noticed a figure on the road near the curb. It was not a traffic cone. Instead, a small boy – who couldn't have been older than three years – was simply standing two feet from the curb on one of the busiest and more dangerous intersections in north Austin. He was wearing a suit with a red vest, as if he was a ring bearer for a wedding, or maybe celebrating his birthday. Some quick thinking allowed me to widen out my turn and avoid clipping the little boy. Thankfully John followed suit behind me.
Heart rate going a mile a minute, I travelled about a hundred feet down the side street before pulling over. John had the same idea and pulled over in about half that distance. Being a father himself, John got out of his car and instinctively walked over to the boy. He asked the child "Whatcha doing? You okay?" and took him by the hand to lead him off of the road. At that time I was looking for the potential home that this boy belonged to. Fortunately that job was made easy when I saw a house with a moonwalk being used in the backyard.
I went to the front door and rang the doorbell – no answer. So I walked around the side of the house and approached a privacy fence with a gate. John caught up with me, holding the boy up by his shoulder. The gate to the backyard was open a little bit, so I immediately put two and two together on how this little boy got out to the street. I called out to anyone who would hear me, and after a moment passed someone finally approached to gate. John handed off the child to the man who answered our call.
"This little guy was out there on the corner. We just brought him back to make sure he was safe." John said sheepishly.
The man was straight-faced, almost as if he was trying to not show a reaction of any kind. He nodded and muttered an almost inaudible "Thank you" as he held the boy. A quick scan of the back yard saw three kids jumping around on the moonwalk, and another man sitting in a covered patio. An awkward silence moved John and I to back our way out of the yard through the gate. We were kind of confused by the lack of emotion by the man, or maybe it was the lack of gratitude. John later commented that if he ever had a lapse in judgment and some strangers returned his boy to him, he'd be buying them drinks and begging them not to tell anyone about it, especially the authorities.
As we resumed making our way to our softball game, I had a good feeling about what had just happened. John and I prevented a scenario that no parent would ever want to go through. But at the same time I couldn't help but smile as I thought about the Dave Chappelle bit where he's riding in a limo at 3:00 in the morning and he sees a baby standing on the corner.
