A good samaritan is being hailed as a hero after jumping into the water to rescue an infant thrown from a car during a Sunday accident, according to authorities.
Ocean City Fire and Police responded to an accident on the Route 90 bridge in Ocean City, Maryland, around 2:47 p.m., according to the Ocean City Fire Department. At least five vehicles had collided on the bridge, WUSA 9 reported.
Upon arrival emergency personnel found a “vehicle was half over the guardrail, and multiple patients were injured.”
“During the collision, one pediatric patient was ejected from the car teetering over the guardrail and landed into the Assawoman Bay,” the Ocean City Fire Department said. A “good samaritan immediately jumped over the guardrail and into the bay, rescuing the infant.”
The man who rescued the infant has chosen to remain anonymous, Ocean City Fire Department firefighter and medic Ryan Whittington told CNN. The fire department has since chosen to refer to him as the “humble hero.”
“He just jumped into action,” Whittington told the outlet, noting the jump was approximately 25 feet and the water is about five feet deep.
“He saved a 23-month-old child. There’s no doubt in our mind that if he had not did what he did when he did it that we would be having a different headline to this story,” Whittington told CNN.
The infant and the man were rescued from the bay by boaters, according to the report.
“I saw that there was the truck over the guardrail and my first instinct was to go look and see if there were people there,” 14-year-old Alayna Oertel, who was behind the wheel of the boat, told WUSA 9. “So, I told my dad to take over and I pulled out the life vests.” (RELATED: Officer Holds Suicidal Man’s Arm As He Dangles From Bridge, Hailed Hero)
Oertel says the man was holding the infant and frantically waving his hand for help. Oertel says the baby was crying but that they knew “she was OK.”
Seven individuals were taken to various hospitals while the infant was taken to John Hopkins Children’s Hospital, according to authorities. The infant is reportedly in stable condition.
It is unclear what caused the crash.