I don’t get many stories like these on my desk anymore; I wish I did though, if only to remind us that many cops are actually doing the job because they want to help people.
When police officer Nick Struck was handed a weeping toddler, soaked in gasoline at the scene of a deadly car crash in Brighton, Colorado, his fatherly instincts kicked in. Struck did the same thing he does when his own 2-year-old daughter is upset. He began to softly sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to distract her from the terrible reality that she cannot yet comprehend.
Struck held the barefoot girl. The child holds the fingers of one hand in her mouth, and clings to Struck’s shoulder like a forlorn koala with the other.
Brighton Police said all six passengers — two adults and four children — were thrown from the car during the accident.
Police said preliminary findings indicated that none of the occupants was properly restrained, but that there was no indication that alcohol or drugs were involved.
According to police, the girl’s father was declared dead at the scene, while the mother and all four children were transported to area hospitals.
“I took her away into the little grass field,” Struck said. “And that’s when all my emotions started coming to.”
Struck said he immediately thought of his 2 year old daughter. “That’s where I thought, oh man, this girl’s the exact same size as my little girl,” he said. “She’s crying. She’s soaked in gasoline.”
“My daughter will start singing halfway through,” Struck said. “And she’ll stop crying and kind of calm down. So I tried that with this girl, and sure enough, it worked. She stopped crying. She was just rubbing my shoulder with the beat.”
He began pointing out the emergency lights and the nearby helicopters, ready to airlift several of her family members to the hospital. He kept singing, meandering through the verses. He realized the beat to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” aligns precisely with the pattern of flashing lights on the firetrucks and police cars.
The Brighton Police Department shared the photo on its Facebook page.
Struck asked that people remember the family in prayer, and said the girl from the photo and her sister were released from the hospital, but that another baby and her 4-year-old brother were still in bad shape.
“The family definitely needs many prayers,” he said. “We just need to keep praying for them.”
Source: CNN
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They do not need prayers, they need help. Shit in one hand and pray for help with the other and see which fills up first. He seems like a very nice officer, though.
What a sweet guy. I hope her little brother and everyone else (except her dad since its to late) makes it out. They will be in my prayers.
That’s the worst attempt at a fabricated story ever. She doesn’t look like she’s “soaked in gasoline”. To who’s custody were these kids released?