A man driving on a highway saw something along the roadway and was surprised at what he discovered when he pulled over to investigate.

Bryant Collins found himself faced with a chance to save the life of a 15-month-old baby that had crawled through the woods, 300 yards from home, and nearly onto Highway 72.

“I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought it was a baby,” Collins recalled. “I just stopped and, when I got out, there was a baby … almost in the highway.”

Collins’ reaction? “The same that yours would have been, man … ‘What the hell is going on? A baby?'”

Collins called 911, and emergency crews arrived. Police arrested the child’s father, Timothy Pickens, and will likely also arrest the child’s mother.

Collins stayed with the baby for two hours.

“The baby started crying,” Collins said, “so I turned my phone on and let her listen to some gospel music, and she calmed right down.”

The child was not hurt, according to Madison County sheriff Kip Thomas.

“Everything was pretty much superficial that we saw,” Thomas said, “Honestly that’s almost a miracle: that a 15-month-old can go that far from her house, into the woods, fall down an embankment, wind up near a major highway, and really not get hurt that bad.”