AN UNSUNG hero risked his own life to save an Okehampton baby from the path of an oncoming car. Rebecca Smithers was pushing baby George in his pushchair towards Bradley's Estate Agents on Okehampton's busy East Street on Thursday afternoon when she tripped and fell, spraining her ankle. The three-wheel pushchair slipped out of her hand as she tumbled, then it rolled down the hill, bumping off the kerb and into the road. Rebecca said: 'I've no idea how I fell, but I went down with a real whack and just couldn't get up. 'I could see George rolling into the road and a car coming around the corner towards him and I was just screaming and screaming.' At that moment, a car on the other side of the road screeched to a halt. Nicola Finnley in the Times office said: 'I heard brakes scream, and saw a woman on the floor. I thought there had been an accident. 'But then I saw a man running like mad down the middle of the road towards a pushchair.' The man snatched George and the pushchair out of danger. 'If he hadn't been there I don't know what would have happened,' Rebecca said. 'When I thanked him, all he said was: "That's okay, I've got children of my own and I just hope that somebody would do the same for one of them".' The man then left, without revealing his identity. Rebecca said she couldn't thank him enough: 'If I live to a hundred I'll never forget that day and what might have happened. 'These days if anyone's in trouble so many people just walk by. I was so lucky that it was him in that car. He was amazing — a real hero.' Rebecca said that from now on she will always use George's reins to strap the pushchair to her wrist and urged other mothers to do the same. 'At least that way, if anything happens to me, the pushchair won't be able to roll away — and even if it meant that George tipped out, he'd have a soft landing on top of me. 'You'd think that with all the safety features they have on cars these days there would be some sort of sensor built into pushchairs to stop them from rolling away if no-one's holding the handle. 'I know that I'd pay to have that on George's pushchair after what I've been through.' Fortunately, Baby George was not upset by his ordeal. 'He was completely oblivious,' said Rebecca. 'I think he just wondered why I didn't say "bump" as he went down the kerb — and he probably wondered why so many people were shouting.' Representatives for Silver Cross and Mamas and Papas baby equpiment companies said they were not aware of any pushchairs with automatic brake sensors available on the UK market, but they would pass Mrs Smithers' suggestion on to their development departments.
