A neighbor caught a seven-year-old girl falling from a third-story window in New York Tuesday morning, saving her from potentially fatal injuries, ABC reported.
The autistic girl, Keyla McCree, crawled out the window of the Brooklyn apartment to dance atop the air conditioning unit when she slipped suddenly.
Passers by had stopped to watch the girl before she slipped, and 52-year-old bus driver Steven St. Bernard rushed to catch McCree at just the right moment.
“Please let me catch her, please let me catch her, that’s all I could say. Let me catch the little baby, that’s all,” the appropriately named St. Bernard told ABC.
St. Bernard has four children of his own, including a seven-year-old daughter. His license plate reads “Saint8,” but he said he was simply at the right place at the right time.
“It feels good now to know that I did something,” St. Bernard said, who lives in the apartment complex.
Police do not believe McCree’s parents did anything criminal. McCree pushed past accordion pieces holding the air conditioning unit to the wall while her mother was in the next room.
“She did hit the bushes and the ground a little, but not straight on because of his arms,” witness Latasha Marcus said.
McCree did not suffer injuries, thanks to St. Bernard, who tore a tendon in his left shoulder.
Now friends and neighbors are calling St. Bernard a hero, but he dismissed the title.
“No. A hero is a sandwich. I just saw a kid, that’s it,” he told ABC.