A quick-thinking McDonald’s drive through worker is being praised for jumping right out of the serving window to rescue a police officer who was seen lying unconscious in her car after suffering a medical emergency.
Store surveillance video shows McDonald’s employee Pedro Viloria jumping right out of the drive-through window after noticing that an off-duty Miami-Dade police officer was lying un-moving in her personal car, CBS Miami reports.
Viloria apparently saw that the officer’s SUV was rolling uncontrolled in the drive through line and that the officer’s children were inside yelling and acting very frightened. The employee quickly jumped out the window, ran to the car, and put the car in park to stop its roll.
“In that moment, I thought, I’d rather save that woman’s life,” Viloria told WPLG. “I see she’s like inflating her neck, like trying to breathe, like ‘ahh,’ and basically I thought something was going wrong.”
“I thought, ‘If those kids lose their mother today, that’s going to be tragic,'” Viloria told the media.
“Her kids were screaming, ‘Mother, mother, stop it, Mother what are you doing?'” Viloria added.
Even as the valorous employee jumped into action, a firefighter paramedic happened to be walking onto the Doral, Florida, restaurant and after learning of the situation, quickly ran outside to give aide to the driver.
Viloria was celebrated by local news and his employers, but the McDonald’s employee waved off all the accolades saying that it was the paramedic and other first responders who arrived a short time later who gave the real life-saving aid.
The restaurant’s owner released a statement congratulating Viloria.
“First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with the officer and her family during this difficult time. I think I speak for our McDonald’s family when I say how proud we are of Pedro. He is an excellent employee, so it didn’t surprise me that he took immediate action and jumped through a window to help save this woman. And he was not the only member of the team that played a pivotal role in ensuring she received the medical attention she needed. A second employee, who asked to remain unnamed, assisted with CPR. Their quick thinking and action were everything in that moment.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.