KNOB NOSTER, Mo. — A body-worn camera from a member of the Johnson County, Missouri, Sheriff's Office recorded the rescue of a toddler nearly submerged in water Monday afternoon.
"Hey! Hey! Can you walk to me? Oh you're stuck? OK. I'm going to come," Cpl. Nicole Collins said in the footage. "She's in the pond north of the residence I'm going in."
Collins told 41 Action News on Tuesday that it was "instinct."
"Also having kids myself, your natural instinct is to save them no matter what," Collins said. "So that and my training, just everything came back to me and I went in after her."
Collins navigated through some rough terrain to get to the 2-year old girl who wandered onto a property in rural area of Knob Noster.
"I swam just a little bit and then my feet, you know, my boots were stuck in the mud," Collins said. "I had to use my hands to pull my knees up out of it a couple times, so I know she was real stuck."
The girl had been reported missing 20 minutes earlier. Neighbors like Alicia Smith formed a search party in that short amount of time.
"I pulled up to them and the little girl's head popped up," Smith said, "And I said, 'Is she OK?' The sheriff said, 'Yes,' so I turned around. I went back to the house and got the mother and brought the mother down here to the baby."
The young girl, according to Collins, suffered a few scratches and bruises from the event.
Collins said the girl eventually told her that she ended up at the pond on the 800 block of Northeast 175th Road because she simply wanted to go for a swim.
"They get away real quick at that age," Collins said. "Some of them don't have that fear that saves kids – older kids and adults – so I was – I was – as soon as I saw that pond and knew that it hadn't been checked, I knew that's where I needed to start."
Collins, who has been with the Sheriff Office for four years and is a field-training officer, is receiving praise from her peers and boss for her actions.
"It's an outstanding outcome to a potential tragic event," said Johnson County, Missouri Sheriff Scott Munsterman.
