GREELEY, Colo.—Two Greeley teens are being praised as heroes for taking a young child to safety after they saw him outside, alone and lightly dressed in 22-degree weather.
The Greeley Tribune reported Saturday () that Claudia Salas and Jessica Espino found the boy walking along a street as they were driving back to West High School after lunch on Dec. 2.
The boy, who was about 2, had no shoes and his socks and pants were wet up to his calves, Salas said. He was carrying a blanket but didn’t have a coat, she said. A police report put the temperature at 22 and said snow was on the ground.
“He wasn’t crying, but he was scared,” Salas said.
Salas and Espino couldn’t find any adult caring for him, so they drove him to their school. Salas held him and tried to warm him up on the way.
“They saved that little boy’s life,” West Principal Bryan Wright said.
A police officer assigned to the school called for help, and officers went door-to-door looking for the boy’s family, with no success.
The boy, whose name wasn’t released, clung to Salas, so both girls stayed with him and entertained him until a social services worker arrived.
The boy’s mother reported him missing later that afternoon, police said.
She told officers she put him to bed for a nap and left briefly to speak to a neighbor, and discovered later he was gone, police said. Police said she lives in an apartment near West High School.
Erica Cruz, 27, was issued a summons for child neglect, police spokesman Joe Tymkowych said. No phone listing could be found for her, and it wasn’t known whether she had a lawyer.
Tymkowych said he didn’t know if the boy was back with his family.
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Information from: Greeley Daily Tribune,
