UPS worker helps free child from locked car
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Tim Spry receives an award in 2020 for 18 years of safe driving as a UPS delivery worker. -
Positively Putnam FL
CRESCENT CITY – A UPS driver and Army veteran rescued a 3-year-old boy in June from the back of a locked car in between delivery stops.
Daytona resident Tim Spry said he was delivering packages in Crescent City when he saw a woman trying to get into her vehicle at her home. And then he noticed a young boy crying in the backseat of the car.
“I was like, ‘Oh, no,’” Spry said. “… You just think of your own grandsons.”
He remembered it being 90 degrees outside and never stopping to find out who the residents were. Spry said he remembers thinking, “I don’t care who it is, what it is. It’s got to be done.”
He kicked into action, asking the woman at the car for a screwdriver and a coat hanger, Spry said. Luckily, he said, he got the door unlocked and told the child’s family to get him into the air conditioning with cool towels.
“At that point, mentally … I had to settle down myself,” Spry said.
But for the rest of the day, he said, he was shaking because the event was an adrenaline rush.
Spry, who served in the Army when he got out of high school and used to be a civilian mechanic, said he has been working for UPS since 1998. In 2020, he received an award from the company for being a safe driver for 18 years. But Spry said nothing like the child rescue has ever happened on the job.
“When something unexpected happens, all of our senses are activated. (Spry) comes in, gets his job done and keeps his head on a swivel in residential areas,” UPS Supervisor Natalie Kennedy said.
“He applied his cool solutions training, knowing to get the little boy in the air conditioning right away. We can teach you methods, but we can’t teach character and integrity. (Spry’s) that kind of guy.”
Spry said after he finished his deliveries that day, he went back to check on the child and saw he was fine. The route he took that June day was not even his route. He does not have a set schedule.
“I was just in the right place at the right time,” Spry said.
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