Tow Truck Driver Spots Frantic Mother Next to Burning Car, Infant Trapped Inside
The moment reveals your mettle. Sure, that sounds a bit strange, but what it means is that you learn what you’re made out of in the instant you’re confronted with a calamity.
Soldiers know how this works. So do police officers and first responders.
When the bullets start flying or the siren begins to wail or you open the door to discover an individual barely clinging to life, you have a choice: You can step up to meet the situation or you can turn tail and flee.
On August 3, one Tuscaloosa, Alabama, tow truck driver proved he had (to quote Tom Wolfe) the right stuff. The story started on a late Friday night when André Harris probably wanted nothing more than to stop working.
A driver for Bambarger Wrecker Service, he had almost completed a job when he noticed something odd in the distance: smoke. Unexplained burning is never a good thing, but Harris had little idea at the time how dire the situation was.
A 23-year-old woman named Alexus Jenkins had gotten involved in a car accident, and not just any accident. Her vehicle had flipped over and then burst into flames.
By the time Harris had taken the initiative and come to investigate, Jenkins had managed to get free of the flaming wreck. Yet the danger wasn’t over.
“I noticed a pair of headlights and as I got closer, I saw a flame coming up from between the engine compartment and the firewall,” Harris told The Tuscaloosa News. “I noticed a lady running up, so I popped on the beacons and asked if anyone was in the car.”
There was. Jenkins’ baby, tiny 7-month-old Demarcus Richardson, lay inside the vehicle.
“I was screaming, I was asking him to please get my baby out of the car,” Jenkins said. “I had gotten him unhooked from the car seat, but I wasn’t able to pull him out.”
So Harris sprang into action. WIAT reported that he punched clean through a window to get to the infant.
He recalled, “When I reached into the car, I had to feel around because I couldn’t see due to the smoke in the car and the darkness. I felt a tiny little leg and I started pulling and the next thing you know, I got to the top of the hill with the baby, and I looked back at the car and the compartment where the baby [had been] was engulfed in flames.”
Harris understands the importance of family. A father of two teenage sons, he also grew up with eight siblings.
“We were always the people who would take care of everyone else before ourselves,” he said. “If we’re put in a position to be a blessing to someone, I think we should take the opportunity.”
Jenkins is thankful to the Almighty that he did. Without his aid, she doesn’t believe that her child would’ve made it.
“I am just grateful to God that he was out there,” She said. “Because I don’t see any other way my baby would have gotten out of the car.”
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