A man was driving with his wife along a lonely street when he spotted a little girl walking by herself and wearing a backpack.
The concerned couple stopped to ask where she was headed, but they got a heartbreaking response that ultimately led them to a terrifying scene a little way back.
The man identified himself to the child as an off-duty police officer to ease her stranger danger when he pulled up alongside her.
It couldn’t have been a coincidence that this brave little girl was first spotted by this man, who may have been off the clock, but never off duty.
Their paths crossed at just the right time, which the police officer soon realized when the child explained where she was going and why.
Having prepared her own backpack that day and dressed herself, the 2-year-old girl told the couple that she was headed to daycare because she couldn’t wake her mom that morning.
That worrisome response soon led to a disheartening discovery at the family’s house, where the child had just come from.
According to The Guardian, the girl led the couple back to her house, where they found her 30-year-old mother Nicolla Ruston dead in the home. While the officer could see that her death was not suspicious, it was clear that she had been deceased for enough time that reviving her was an impossibility, but what the officer did next left others in the community in shock.
Realizing that this girl was now motherless and alone in life, the cop and his wife stayed with her and comforted this scared little girl, until authorities arrived to make more permanent arrangements for the now orphaned child. He could have chosen to be stoic in this situation, but he decided it was more important to be human, which was a benefit to the toddler who couldn’t fully grasp the gravity of this tragedy.
Chief Inspector Steve Maskrey commended this incredible public servant for his heart in the matter, after happening on a scene he wasn’t expecting to face during his time off of the clock. “This is a brilliant piece of work by him that shows that we are never off-duty,” Maskrey praised the unnamed cop.
“The officer and his wife took the time to look after the little girl and stay with her until emergency services arrived … My thoughts are with the family and friends of the deceased at this difficult time.”
The girl has since been placed in the custody of other relatives and an investigation into her mother’s sudden death is underway. But the power of the human spirit is evident in both this child and her accidental hero, who are years apart in age, but both demonstrate something profound.
