A teenager who pulled a toddler off the roof of a home says he didn’t think twice before rushing into the home to get the young child to safety.
“I saw him on the roof and [thought] ‘I’m going to help him,’” Khalid Tabateb told CTVNews.ca Tuesday in a telephone interview from his Hamilton, Ont. home.
Tabateb and his father, who arrived in Canada as refugees from Syria several years ago, noticed the toddler Aug. 10 as they were driving down Hamilton’s busy King Street on their way home.
Video posted to social media shows the one-year-old child standing near the edge of the roof while wearing only a diaper. A number of people appear to be watching the toddler from below.
Tabateb took things a few steps further. First he knocked on the door. Once it became clear there would be no response, he broke a window screen to get into the two-storey house, made his way upstairs, leaned out the window and called out to the boy.
“I didn’t want to scare him, you know?” he said. “He was scared. He looked down like he was scared.”
Tabateb, 18, says he then grabbed the boy and pulled him inside. He then woke up the toddler’s mother, who had been sleeping, and told her what had happened.
“She hugged the baby and said thank you,” he said.
Police have said the boy was left inside his bedroom for a nap and somehow made his way out the window and onto the roof. They’re reminding parents to secure windows and doorways in their homes to help keep children safe.
For his part, Tabateb says he’s happy he was able to make a difference.
“I feel good,” he said. “I’m glad I saved the baby.”
