After stopping his vehicle to look into the matter after spotting a young girl wandering the streets of Manhattan’s Upper West Side by herself, an MTA bus driver in New York City is being hailed as a hero.
Former MTA employee Luis Jimenez, 60, said he had a hunch something wasn’t quite right when he seen the 5-year-old child by herself dashing from the sidewalk into the street last month, close to W. 106 Street and Broadway.
After her fish died, the girl went to the pet store instead of school that day, according to officials later on. About ten streets away, her school had filed a missing person’s report.
“My instinct as a father came on because if I see a kid in the street in need of help, I would want somebody to help one of my children or one of my grandkids,” Jimenez stated to ABC 7 New York.
“You know, my wife always, you know, kind of like she’s worried about me because she knows that when I see something, it’s like we have a saying in the MTA, ‘if you see something, say something.'”
After watching the girl for about a block, Jimenez claimed, he asked one of his passengers to phone 911. He then pulled over the bus and, with the assistance of other passengers, bought the girl off of the bus while they waited for the police to come.
Jimenez expressed his gratitude for not taking the day off from work due to illness, even though he had been thinking about doing so.
The girl and her family were reunited by the police.
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The kid had no prior history of running away from school, but officials stated that she skipped class to go to the pet store and get a new fish after her pet died.
Regarding the girl’s search for a new pet fish, Jimenez stated, “If she didn’t get it, we should help out and try to get it for her.”
“Times are hard and there’s things happening every day, and every day we got to come in with a positive attitude and be able to, even though it’s negative all over the world going on, we have to go ahead and make a difference.”
