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‘We avoided disaster’ Video shows store manager catching baby above concrete floor

Posted at 4:16 PM, Dec 09, 2019
and last updated 2019-12-09 17:04:30-05

HURRICANE, Utah (KSTU) — Surveillance video from inside a Utah pawn shop shows a store employee saving a child from what could have been a dangerous tumble.

Saturday afternoon, two adult women were shopping for a firearm inside Family Pawn in Hurricane.

As they were looking over a gun, one of the women placed a young child on the store’s counter. The child then lost balance and started to fall toward the floor.

Luckily, store manager Bill Reel was standing a few feet away and noticed the child in the dangerous situation.

“I reacted, probably within an eighth of a second,” Reel said. “I saw the baby bob just enough to show me that it could barely hold itself up, and I just ran toward it.”

The video shows Reel catching the child a few feet before hitting the ground.

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“There is no doubt that would have been a serious injury, if not a brain injury as well,” Reel said. “It was going headfirst into the concrete.”

Reel estimates the baby was about 7 months old. He was unsure if the child was a boy or a girl. He is happy he was in the right place at the right time.

“I held the baby for a second or two and just collected my own thoughts and realized we avoided disaster there,” Reel said.

Reel, who himself is a father of four children, hopes this serves as an example to parents that every young child always needs to be in the shadow of a watchful eye.

“I think life is precious and being a parent is hard enough. I would suggest parents just be careful,” Reel said.