Hero!: Ex-Con Rescues Baby Crawling Toward Traffic on Busy Highway

You may find yourself in the right place at the right time…but will you do the right thing? After all, we’re busy. When we’re driving on the highway, the last thing we want to do is pull over to look at something we saw out of the corner of our eye. Probably just a bird. Or a piece of paper.

But Bryant Collins didn’t dismiss what he saw. In fact, he took a second look. "I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought it was a baby," Collins told NBC affiliate WXIA. "I just stopped and, when I got out, there was a baby—almost in the highway."

Always trust your instincts!

Collins has been working as an auto mechanic for five years, and now he can add something else to his resume: Hero.

He says that he's been in a lot of "bad situations," but still couldn't believe his eyes when he spotted the toddler crawling perilously close to Highway 72 in Georgia.

The ex-con who turned his life around after spending 10 years in federal lockup for drugs is now being hailed a hero after he rescued a 15-month-old girl who wandered away from home and made her way to the edge of a busy highway. 

She apparently crawled 300 yards through the woods before tumbling down an embankment and then making her way to the street, where she could easily have been run over. Yikes!

Aside from some superficial bumps and scrapes, the lil one was fine. Collins comforted the child for two hours—playing gospel music for her from his phone—while police tried to figure out what the heck happened.

Where did the tiny tot live and how did she get to where she was found? They didn’t know if someone had just dumped her off like an unwanted pet, or what.

Madison County Sheriff Kip Thomas later told reporters that it appeared the traveling toddler was left in the care of her older siblings who simply lost track of her.

Eventually the baby’s father, Timothy Pickens, showed up…and began fighting with police, according to the sheriff's office. That brilliant idea put him in custody (Later, the parents spoke out.)

But for Collins, the whole thing was an opportunity to show the world that he is a changed man. "I did 10 years in the federal institution for manufacturing cocaine," he said. "When I was in prison, I made a very conscientious effort to change, and I did."

Saving the baby from being run over and quite probably killed, really drove home his point. "It made me feel good, that I could be in society and do good," Collins said.

Here’s to the everyday heroes! #actsofkindness