Binman saves baby in runaway stroller

A quick-thinking Seattle garbage truck driver helped rescue a baby in a runaway stroller. Jeff Blackburn was driving a CleanScapes truck on his Queen Anne route Thursday when he saw a woman jogging with a baby in a stroller. "I noticed as I was coming around the corner that a lady was just walking away from her stroller," Blackburn said.



Blackburn said the woman turned the stroller sideways at the top of Bigelow Avenue, then went to apparently meet a group of other women around the corner, but the stroller just turned and took off. "She was on a hill and almost immediately when she turned the corner the stroller started to turn and roll down the hill," Blackburn said. "So I started honking the horn and speeding up so I could catch up to it before it got to the intersection, because at the bottom of the hill was a busy intersection with stop signs." Blackburn used his truck to block any traffic, and ran to save the baby.

"When I got to the bottom, I hit the brake, got out of the truck and tried to grab it," Blackburn said. "Luckily when I was honking the horn, a FedEx truck was going through the intersection and stopped because he heard the horn honking." Blackburn and a woman were able to stop the stroller just after it hit the kerb. He says the little boy was smiling when he got to the him. "He seemed to be having a great time rolling down the hill ... he seemed to enjoy it,"


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Blackburn said. The frantic woman arrived seconds later. "She came running in - she was freaked out and was shaking and... I don't even think she said anything, she just grabbed the kid and ran away," Blackburn said. "She was just really, really shook up." He says he was in the right place at the right time because the FedEx truck going through the intersection would likely have never seen the stroller had it not been for all the horn honking. Blackburn was asked if he had seen anything before in the three years he's been on the route. "No, this is the first. People usually hold on to their children," he laughed.

With news video.