A quick-thinking Florida Highway Patrol trooper prevented what could have been a tragic incident involving a child this week.
According to the FHP, the trooper stopped a suspected drunk driver early Monday morning on Interstate 75 in the San Antonio area of Pasco County.
That's when things got dangerously out of control.
After calls about a car weaving across highway lanes and swiping a concrete barrier, Paul Rawald responded and pulled over driver Dominic Thompson at 2:10 a.m.
According to officials, after pulling over, Thompson got out of the car to talk to Rawald.
However, Thompson left the car in drive and the vehicle began rolling away along the shoulder of the road - with Thompson's 2-year-old daughter in the backseat.
Trooper Rawald sprang into action, running down the car, jumping into the driver's seat and hitting the brakes before the car could roll off the shoulder and into a nearby ditch.
"It was instantaneous for me. There was no thinking about it. There was no weighing and measuring. It's "I have to get to that child"," said Rawald.
There were no injuries.
Rawald said he talked to the child while they waited for her mother to pick her up.
"I would play with my handcuffs which she thought was amazing and she just started laughing. She's very intelligent for being 2 years old. She had a vocabulary I still can't believe," said Rawald.
Thompson, 30, faces charges of DUI, drug possession without a prescription and child neglect.
According to records, Thompson has been arrested four times during the past decade, twice on DUI charges.
The child's mother, Kelly Thompson, responded to a message Bay News 9 sent her.
"I am forever grateful for the Trooper taking the extra step in caring for my little one," Thompson said.
Rawald said he doesn't consider himself a hero. He said he was just doing his job and was at the right place at the right time.