NEW ORLEANS – Reginald Walton had just rolled his 18-wheeler into Louisiana, eastbound on Interstate 10 after making a Texas delivery, when he spotted what looked like a discarded baby doll sitting on the embankment.
Then he saw movement.
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“I noticed that it moved and I called 911 and told them I thought I saw a child on the side of the road,” Walton told The Associated Press in a Friday telephone interview.
Walton, of Texarkana, Texas, didn't know it as he maneuvered his semitrailer to the roadside Tuesday morning, but the abandoned child had been the object of an intense search since his 4-year-old brother was found dead the day before. The sheriff of Calcasieu Parish later called the surviving child a “miracle baby,” saying the 1-year-old boy had been left outside and alone for around two days as intermittent storms spun off of Hurricane Beryl, which hit Texas Monday.
Walton said authorities stayed on the phone with him while he stopped his rig. “Running about 65 or 70 miles an hour in a tractor trailer, it took me about a quarter of a mile to even come to a complete stop.”
He then walked back to where he had spotted the child while police made their way there. “When I got to him, he was sitting down and as soon as he made visual contact with me, he smiled,” Walton remembered. “And then he stood up, started crying and walked toward me. And once I grabbed his hand, he stopped crying.”
Walton, who also related his story to KADN-TV in Lake Charles, only learned the full backstory hours later on the internet.
On Monday, authorities in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, had pulled the boy's 4-year-old brother from a lake behind an interstate welcome center near the Texas line. The children's mother was arrested hundreds of miles away in Meridian, Mississippi, and faces multiple charges in Louisiana, including second-degree murder.
Hours after Walton rescued the baby, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Gary “Stitch” Guillory said the child appeared to be in good condition, although he had numerous insect bites. The child was to be turned over to state family services authorities.
“It was just sad to know someone would leave a child by the side of the road,” Walton said Friday. “I was just glad that I was the one to be there — to be able to help him.”