Vietnamese truck driver dislocates ankle running down highway to save toddler from 90 kph traffic

Ly Van To, 31, was driving a delivery truck south from Quang Tri back to his home in Da Nang in central Vietnam at around 3:35 p.m. on April 4 when he spotted the child on the shoulder of Highway 1 at kilometer 860, a stretch that runs through Phu Loc Commune on the outskirts of Hue.

The girl suddenly stepped into the traffic lane and began walking across the road, which carries four lanes at speeds of up to 90 kph.

To braked, switched on his hazard lights and leaned on his horn to warn the cars behind him. He told Thanh Nien newspaper his first instinct was to pull onto the shoulder and then run back, but the girl kept moving faster than he expected.

“I saw the child running straight across from that corner. I couldn’t believe such a small child could make it all the way to the other side with cars going that fast,” he said. “My reflex at that moment was that I had to stop the truck at any cost.”

When the girl slipped through a gap in the central median and crossed into the opposing lanes, To braked hard and jumped from the cab so abruptly that he dislocated his ankle on landing. He kept running anyway, reaching the child and carrying her to the roadside just as an oncoming car swerved to avoid a collision. He handed the girl over to her family, then got back in his truck and continued the delivery run.

Dashcam footage of the rescue spread across Vietnamese social media the next day, drawing tens of thousands of shares and praise for the driver’s reflexes.

Major Nguyen Anh Hung, chief of the Phu Loc Traffic Police Station under Hue City Police, said his officers had phoned To on April 5 to commend him, and to reassure him he would not be fined under Vietnam’s automated traffic enforcement system for stopping in a live traffic lane. Drivers can face heavy penalties for stopping on Highway 1.

“Honestly, what I was worried about was being fined, because stopping in the middle of the road like that can carry a very heavy penalty,” he told Your Three newspaper. “But the officers at the Phu Loc traffic police station called me and said they wouldn’t fine me, so I was very relieved.” He added that he believed “anyone in that situation would have done the same thing.”

The toddler’s parents were away working in Ho Chi Minh City at the time of the incident, To told Thanh Nien. The girl had been at home with her older sister in a house near the highway when she opened the door and walked out onto the road unnoticed. A moment’s lapse of supervision, he said, was all it took.

To, who runs a regular delivery route between Da Nang and Hanoi, said he had not posted anything about the incident himself and was surprised by the attention.

A Facebook account bearing his name and claiming to be his has since gained several thousand followers, but he said it was an impostor account and he had no idea why anyone would create one.