A 12-year-old girl with developmental disabilities was found wandering on the side of the highway by a truck driver from Ohio, who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
While driving his usual route at approximately 1 a.m. on Feb. 15, Derek Flory’s attention was abruptly drawn to a small light that swiftly maneuvered its way to the center of the road.
“Once I blared the horn, the light went crazy,” Flory said. “As I got closer, I found out that it was not a bicycle and it was a little girl.”
Flory quickly pulled the car over and caught the child’s attention, guiding her away from the busy highway.
“She came straight to me,” he said. “I was able to get her into the truck and then pull up to a local business with a parking lot and that’s when I called the cops.”
“I called them and say, ‘Hey I have this little girl on 23 north,’ and they said, ‘Okay, we’ve been looking for her,'” Flory explained. “They showed up, they said grandma called probably 10 to 15 minutes beforehand, so luckily she wasn’t out too long from what we know.”
Flory mentioned that if the flashlight on the girl’s cellphone hadn’t been turned on, he didn’t think he would have noticed her in time to prevent an accident.
“It definitely hit close to home because it’s one of those things where like it’s scary, it’s really scary,” Flory said. “I’d like to say God put me there at that time and place.”