{"id":402,"date":"2019-06-23T16:17:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-23T16:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=402"},"modified":"2019-06-23T16:17:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-23T16:17:41","slug":"lakeland-bus-driver-is-a-hero-for-saving-1-year-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/06\/23\/lakeland-bus-driver-is-a-hero-for-saving-1-year-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland Bus Driver is a Hero for saving 1-year-old"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Citrus Connection employee said it was his training that\nled him to rescue an unaccompanied child wandering along a Mulberry road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paratransit driver Pedro Gonzalez said he turned left onto\nNW 9th Street as he nearly finished with his stops for the day when he spotted\na 1-year-old boy standing in the shoulder of the roadway. Looking around,\nGonzalez said he quickly realized the child had no parents or guardians in\nsight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a professional driver, we\u2019re trained for that. We have\nto be looking forward, on the sides, the clearance of height and backward,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cIt\u2019s like a basketball player, we have to have a full vision of the game.\nThat\u2019s the way we drive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gonzalez said he pulled over, turned on his emergency\nflashers and stepped out of the vehicle to pick up the child. With the boy\nsafely on the bus, the driver said he contacted his dispatcher to notify\nauthorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The child\u2019s mother, Latriscia Wilson, said the boy\u2019s father\nhad realized the child was missing, starting a frantic search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis father jumped up, ran out of the house and that\u2019s when\nhe saw the Citrus Connection driver had him,\u201d she said. \u201cI was relieved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson said she didn\u2019t double check that the front door of\nher home was fully closed and locked after stepping inside. She assumed this is\nhow her child got outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s at the age where he\u2019s started to open room doors if\nthey are cracked,\u201d she said. \u201cThe front door was cracked and he walked out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gonzalez stayed with the child and his father until police\narrived at the scene, verifying the father\u2019s identity and releasing the\n1-year-old back to his parents. Wilson said she was thankful for the bus\ndriver\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m just grateful because I\u2019m not mourning my son or still\ntrying to search for him,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s still here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Phillips, executive director of Citrus Connection, said\nthe public transit agency plans to honor Gonzalez at its July board meeting for\ngoing above and beyond the call of duty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPedro is one of the best of us,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cJust like\na basketball player, he did exactly what he needed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Citrus Connection employee said it was his training that led him to rescue an unaccompanied child wandering along a Mulberry road. Paratransit driver Pedro Gonzalez said he turned left… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}