ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 3, 1996 TAG: 9605030045
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
Back in the woods off Pilot Road, a 3-year-old boy sat alone and scared on a tree stump almost a mile from home Wednesday evening when a red Honda four-wheeler stopped just 10 feet away.
Jerry Crawford, a volunteer on the Christiansburg Rescue Squad, found the lost little boy by following the sound of a child crying. The boy had strayed too far from home after chasing an errant dog with his 5-year-old sister.
"When I got to him he was shaking and crying and his bottom was wet ... If it had been about 10 feet farther [from the trail] I'd have never seen him," he said.
The 48-year-old quality control technician at Wolverine Gasket and Manufacturing Co. has seen plenty of unhappy endings during his 11 years on the rescue squad. The hardest calls, he said, are when a child is seriously injured. Crawford has three children of his own, all grown.
This time, Crawford had a happy ending when he answered his pager at about 8 p.m. Wednesday. The boy's sister immediately was found by other rescue squad members. Crawford hopped into his Honda and found the boy within minutes, just before the sky went completely dark.
"I picked him up and said, 'You want to go for a four-wheel ride?'" he said. "Boy, he clamped around my neck. Boy, that's a warm feeling."
Crawford wrapped the boy in his coat and put him on the all-terrain vehicle. By this time, it was too dark to drive without headlights. Within minutes, the boy was returned to his relieved mother.
Crawford never caught the boy's name - the 3-year-old was too upset to talk on the trip home.
The lifetime rescue squad member is not seeking accolades and is rather modest about the whole incident.
"It's kind of embarrassing really," he said. "You see a job. Somebody's got to do it so I did it."
LENGTH: Short : 42 linesby CNB