Being the Guy Who Saved the Baby

It all happened in about 10 seconds. This was a year ago, and I’d just been to a job interview to be a dishwasher at Applebee’s. I was sitting outside a car wash, waiting for my sister. Nearby, I saw a baby stroller get picked up by a gust of wind and start rolling toward a busy road. Before I could even think, I ran and grabbed the stroller right before it went into traffic. The little boy had been with his great-aunt, but she had tripped and fallen, and his stroller had gotten away from her. I rolled him right back up to her and gave her a big hug.

That would have been the end of it, except that the whole thing was captured on video and went viral. Within a few days, it had been viewed 58 million times.

TV stations and newspapers wanted to hear my story, so I told them. My girlfriend had died five years earlier, and it broke me. All I could do was cry. I’d been clean and sober for years when she died, but I started using drugs again. I became homeless. I got beat up and left for dead on the railroad tracks in Fontana, California.

Then my sister took me in, and I realized I had to clean up my act. I stopped the drugs and went looking for a job. That’s what had taken me to Applebee’s that day. As I said to one of the TV reporters, if you want something different, you’ve got to do something different. And I wanted something different for myself.

Nessman a few steps from heroism

Screenshot Courtesy A1 Carwash, Hesperia, California

All my life, I was always that person doing something stupid or wrong. I’ve been to prison four times. But suddenly people were saying nice things about me. They offered me money — though I never took a dime. People demanded that Applebee’s hire me, which it did. And I learned that people are good. They would come into Applebee’s and say, “Is that the guy who saved the baby? He really works here?” When I went to the DMV, people said, “Are you the guy that saved the baby?”

For the first time, I realized that I had been in a prison in my mind, thinking that I wasn’t worth anything. When you feel worthless, that’s how you expect to be treated. But now people were treating me like I had value. And it changed me. I’m open to everything. My confidence is through the roof. It’s so much easier to speak to people. I feel I’m worthy.

I applied for a truck driver’s license, and in April, after nearly a year at Applebee’s, I started a job as a long-haul trucker. I loved my job, but this pays way better.

My message for others is that it’s never too late to change. Until I was past 50, I used to do this and that, but today I work hard. I know what I’m doing, and I know that I make a difference.

Truck driver Ronald Nessman, 54, lives in Victorville, California.