A Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) bus driver has been praised after rescuing a baby boy she found wandering alone in below-freezing temperatures.
Irena Ivic spotted the child on an overpass around 8 a.m on December 22 last year, officials said yesterday during an award ceremony. The child, who was less than one year old at the time of the incident, was barefoot and wearing only a onesie and diaper, CBS News reported.
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The rescue was captured on the bus surveillance cameras. In the footage, published online Thursday, Ivic stops the bus and runs toward the boy, who was crying on a street corner.
She then rushes back to the vehicle, where some passengers look on. "Oh my God," she is heard saying. "I'm shaking." One passenger responds: "Oh, I am too." While waiting for law enforcement to arrive on the scene, another passenger offers her coat to the baby.
According to MCTS, it emerged the boy's mother had left him outside. Officers were later able to reunite the boy with his father. No identities were released by the local police.
It was the ninth lost or missing child found by MCTS drivers in recent years, officials said.
"[The] baby was so scared, and cried," Ivic, a mother of two, explained during the MCTS award ceremony yesterday, published in full by ABC-affiliated news outlet WISN. "He didn't know what to do or where to go. When I saw him I pull over my bus and immediately went to pick him up."
The driver told reporters she is a former teacher who emigrated from Serbia 12 years ago. She has worked for the MCTS for five years. Before that, she drove a school bus. "I have my children too," Ivic said. "And if I find myself in the same situation again, I will, of course, help again."
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele awarded her with a commemoration plaque while offering a glowing appraisal of the employee's efforts to save the lost child.
"There is no shortage of signals today to tell you to watch out for yourself and take care of yourself and there is an awful lot of talk about division," he said. "Irena Ivic did a lot more than her job, she did the right thing. All of us are better when we have compassion.
"If it's a sad thing that its the ninth time than an MCTS driver has had to help a lost child get back to their family it is an extraordinary thing that we have drivers like Irena who are there to do it without hesitation," Abele added. "That is something we should celebrate."
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