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The dashboard camera in a Michigan State Police (MSP) cruiser recorded the tense moments leading up to an officer dashing into the road to stop a small child from wandering into the path of a large truck.
Footage of the May 24 incident was released via the Michigan State Police‘s social media, along with a release detailing its events. According to the combination of the release and video, MSP Sergeant Richards was on patrol at 3:39 pm last Friday when he spotted a young child—a two-year-old girl—toddling across a busy road.
Sergeant Richards pulled up to the girl, now on his side of the road, but as he got out to meet the young girl, she turned around and began walking back across the road, right as a dump truck was traveling down the road toward her. Richards lunged into the road, scooping up the toddler just as the truck reached them. The video shows the truck blow by, smoking, the driver having locked his brakes and swerved away while trying to perform an emergency stop and avoid the child.
Immediately after the near-miss incident, the girl’s mother appeared on-scene, explaining that her daughter disappeared just seconds earlier. Authorities handed the child back over to her mother, unharmed.
Sadly, encounters between children, police, and moving vehicles don’t always end as well. Last week, news broke of a collision between a Boston police officer’s cruiser and a one-year-old girl, which broke the child’s collarbone and inflicted other minor injuries. Thankfully, the child is expected to make a full recovery, but accidents can happen to the best of us—even the ones holding badges sometimes make consequential mistakes.
