An Arizona good Samaritan rescued a five-year-old boy with special needs who wandered into a busy intersection.
The man’s inspiring act was captured by a street camera.
Dakota McDonald was driving in Peoria when he noticed a small child walking down the middle of the street, then skipping right into the intersection near 71st and Peoria Avenues, ABC15 reported.
The child, who is nonverbal, had roamed off the campus of the nearby Ira Murphy Elementary School and did not appear to have any adults with him.
Footage obtained by the news outlet shows the moments after McDonald pulled over, got out of his car, and chased after the boy:
The child was merely feet away from oncoming vehicles when the kind stranger rushed in front of him and calmly guided him to safety.
“I sat him down and I gave him some like the goldfish crackers,” McDonald told ABC. “That’s all I had in my truck for a snack. So, I gave him some water… because I honestly didn’t know where he came from, how long he’d been out, or anything.”
He explained how his fatherly instincts kicked in in that moment.
“This happened when I just had my son. He was like, six months old, so that heightened sense was really going on. And I was like, kid in the middle of the street, that’s not happening.”
“I didn’t think of it as anything heroic. I just, hey, that’s the right thing to do,” he added.
Peoria police returned the boy to his home and awarded McDonald a Citizen Commendation for his potentially life-saving act.
