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12-Year-Old Boy Saves Toddler’s Life by Smashing the Windshield of Hot Car

Not all heroes wear capes and not all of them are of age. A 12-year-old boy from Tulsa, Oklahoma, is being hailed a hero after he helped save a toddler’s life last week, by breaking the windshield of a hot car.
Oklahoma boy smashes windshield of hot car with ratchet strap, saves toddler's life 17 photos
Photo: fox23.com
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It happened in the parking lot of a shopping center, Fox 23 reports. The boy, Ben Theriot, was heading to one of the stores with his mother, to buy new shoes. As they made their way across the parking lot, they heard screams and crying, and they found the source of all that noise to be a toddler locked in a parked car.

On the day this happened, the head index was 116 degrees, the publication notes. The child looked in severe distress and he was banging on the windows, trying to get out, Ben says – and the Tulsa police confirm his story.

While his mother was on the phone with the police, Ben sprung to action. He retrieved a ratchet strap from his mother’s car and first tried to break the window on the driver’s side. He had little success, though he managed to crack it a bit. He thought breaking the windshield would be easier, so he concentrated on that next.

“I swung it over my shoulder, hit it right in the center,” Ben recalls. “And then I hit it a couple more times and then I climbed on the windshield. I stomped on it and then it cracked pretty badly again. Then, the lady went and grabbed that hanger thing and then I put the hook into the windshield and pulled it out. And then I unlocked it.”

The lady he talks about is an employee from a store at the shopping center, who came out with a part of a clothes rack. Together, they pulled the windshield out and Ben was able to crawl into the car and open it from inside.

By the time the rescue mission was over, first responders arrived at the scene. The toddler was red-faced and distressed, but he did not require hospitalization. Police found the mother inside the shopping center but refused to arrest her because she said an adult should have been with the child while she was inside.

This was also her first offense, so she was hit instead with a $250 ticket under the Forget Me Not Safety Ordinance. Police have praised Ben’s quick-thinking.

“Within minutes, that child could have passed out and became ill from a heat injury. Time was of the essence in that situation,” Officer Jeanne Pierce says. “We’d rather have a broken windshield than a child death. Any individual wouldn’t be in trouble with us in that situation because they saved the life of that child.”

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About the author: Elena Gorgan
Elena Gorgan profile photo

Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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