Heroes on Wheels: Driver Rescues Lost Toddler
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 5:16 PM
Meet our next "Hero on Wheels."
Sean Hill has been driving a bus for METRO for almost a decade. Last fall, Hill became an instant hero to a young boy in crisis.
The single father of three girls - ages 17, 15 and 2 - was driving the 80 Dowling/Lyons route when he noticed a three-year-old boy walking alone around a bus stop on Tierwester St. in front of Cuney Homes, the city's biggest public housing property.
Hill drove to the end of the line, and when he returned, he saw the same little boy - this time sitting at the bus stop alone. It was 11:10 a.m.
"I stopped and asked, ‘Are you sitting for the bus?' and he started crying. He said he was lost. I still had five passengers on the bus. They didn't mind and said to find who he was," recalled Hill, who works out of our Kashmere facility.
Hill knocked on five apartment doors at the sprawling complex with 18 buildings and 118 units. Someone suggested he take the child to the community building, where he turned the child over to Diane M. Sheffield, president of the Cuney Homes Resident Council. 
Sheffield called the police and started asking residents at the community center if they recognized the child. Finally, a young woman thought she knew a relative with whom the child was living. The child was escorted to the relative, who was playing Dominoes outside and hadn't realized the boy had wandered away.
Sheffield said she's glad our METRO driver brought the boy to the community building - the heart of the complex.
"It was a very, very good thing," said Sheffield of the bus operator's action. "I'm glad the bus driver stopped and rendered aid to the little boy. And I'm glad we have METRO buses around the area of Cuney Homes."
Hill said observing the crying youngster was simply part of his job.
"I actually watch everything around me. That's what we're trained to be - to be observant...and to get the big picture. I knew it from my years of driving," said Hill, who also trains new drivers.
But to a frightened three-year-old boy, Hill had just become a new hero.