Postal worker says his rescue of toddler was ‘God-ordained’
A U.S. Postal Service employee in Maryland, who saved the life of a missing 2-year-old boy walking barefoot along a highway, said he’s not a hero and that God ordained that he be there at that time.
Keith Rollins saw the toddler, Ethan Adeyemi, who was wet and shivering and had been missing for about 10 hours, on I-95 in Howard County Thursday morning, WUSA90 reported. Police had launched a search with fire personnel, K9 units, aircraft, drones and helicopters from neighboring jurisdictions.
But it was Rollins who found the boy while driving. “It was God-ordained that I be in that place at that time. Remarkable man, remarkable,” he was quoted as saying. “I happened to see a little head. I didn’t know whether it was a human head or whether it was an animal, so I pulled over and called 911.”
He said he then carried the child and took him to his vehicle. “I had a sweater that I tried to cover him up with, and turned up the heat and I called the police back and said that I had the little boy in my vehicle, and within a matter of minutes, the police were there.”
When neighbors and officials called Rollins a hero, he responded, "Giving glory to God that I was able to help at that particular time and be in the correct place at the right time. But a hero? Nah, not at all.”
Another rescue was reported last month in Bellevue, Nebraska, in which God’s intervention was acknowledged.
When a photographer, Terry Ingram, was taking photos of eagles, he saw a car flying past him and the driver had lost control while crossing railroad tracks. It hit a fire hydrant and flipped upside down in an icy pond. Terry courageously ran into the freezing water and was able to get one of the car doors open. He heard a young man say, “Get me out, it’s filling full of water.” Terry pulled all three men from that vehicle and helped drag them to shore, heroically saving their lives.
“I panicked when I heard the guy's voice. ‘Get me out, it's filling full of water,’” Ingram recalled, according to KETV. “Once I pulled the door open, the water started going in, and he was coming out. Just seeing those bodies there, I thought they were gone.”
While the families of the three men called Ingram a hero, the photographer responded, “God puts people in places for a reason. I think he told me my camera’s dead, go up there and wait.”