Toddler Falls from Moving Church Bus, Gets Rescued by Volunteer Firefighter
In what could be considered an unbelievable incident, a young girl accidentally fell off a moving church bus, news reports say. Thankfully, a volunteer firefighter was there to help.
A church bus was running along a busy Highway 65 in Harrison, Arkansas, when suddenly its back door popped open and a young girl fell out, the New York Post reports. The bus kept on going as the driver at the steering wheel hadn't noticed.
Thankfully, a licensed emergency medical technician (EMT) and volunteer firefighter, Ryan Ciampoli, was close by and quickly rushed to the child's help.
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"My heart sank," Ciampoli told CNN. "That's the first time I've ever seen it in my life, in person. It didn't look real. I had to do a double-take."
As seen in the video, the young child initially lost consciousness but slowly woke up as Ciampoli was approaching her.
"Once I picked her up and put her in my arms, it was heartbreaking," Ciampoli, a Crawford county firefighter, said on the Today show. "She just had this horrified look on her face. I just had to not think about my family, my children, and just focus on her."
Normally, Ciampoli wouldn't move anybody who has suffered trauma injuries. However, he didn't want to risk the child or himself being hit by vehicles on the state highway, so he transferred the young girl to a truck bed nearby, and worked on keeping her conscious while monitoring her vitals, 40/29 reported.
After some time, she started kicking and crying out for her mom, Ciampoli said.
"Stuff like that's really heartbreaking," Ciampoli added.
Paramedics took the 4-year-old to Mercy hospital where she was found to have sustained a broken jaw. Although she needed to undergo surgery to repair her jaw, she is expected to make a full recovery.
According to the incident report released by the Harrison Police Department, the bus, which belonged to the Christian Life Center in Harrison, was carrying 10 passengers at the time – all of them children. Paul Woodruff, chief of the police department, told CNN that the only adult inside the vehicle was its driver, Tim Hampton, the pastor of the church.
The children said the victim went to the rear door and opened the latch, causing the door to open. They also said they alerted Hampton when the child fell out and he pulled over. Police said he is not charged for the incident as it was "just a tragic accident."
