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Tustin, CA (KCAL/KCBS) — A retired officer who rescued an unsupervised toddler steps away from the path of moving cars is speaking out.
Darryl Pang hopes sharing the stomach-turning video will encourage caregivers to be more diligent when looking after young children.
His dash cam caught him making a U-turn and blocking traffic to help a little boy safely navigate Myford Rd. in Tustin, which along Laurel Glen Park.
The video shows Pang driving up to the toddler, unsupervised as he bounces a ball from the side of the road into the street. Pang gets out of his vehicle and the boy begins to meander into traffic. Fortunately, vehicles heed Pang’s gestures to slow and stop, as he picks up the boy and crosses the street to get his ball.
“I got to here waiting for a parent to come running up. I honk the horn,” Pang recalled. Still, no one came for the boy.
He crosses the street once again, toward the park.
“I’m actually thinking that at any moment now a parent is going to come running up. That’s what usually happens. And it didn’t happen,” Pang said.
While safely in Pang’s arms, a man then walks out to the street, reaching for the child and mumbling something Pang didn’t hear. The man waves and goes back to the park.
Pang got back in his vehicle with a big sigh of relief.
He hopes the video will serve as a cautionary tale.
“We were taught a thousand years ago, in high school, drivers’ ed.,” he said. “The little kid chasing the ball in the street. It still happens.”
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