Former Convict Finds Baby Crawling Along Busy Highway And Calms Her By Playing Gospel

Sep 24, 2021 by apost team

There are moments in life when someone can be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. This was true for Bryant Collins who was driving down a busy highway in November 2016 when he suddenly saw a baby crawling near the road. He was shocked but pulled over, secured the child’s safety and called emergency services right away.

Collins said he only saw the 15-month-old baby girl for a moment as he was driving down Highway 72 in Madison County, Georgia. He couldn’t believe what he had seen but stopped just in case. And sure enough, there was little Emily Pickens, crawling near the dangerous roadway. The 911 operator was in disbelief when she got the call, and Collins waited for two hours with the child while emergency services arrived. 

The baby had been left in the care of her siblings, who were only kids themselves and did not notice when she had crawled away. Their home is 300 yards from Highway 72, and somehow the child had managed to crawl that distance through the woods and down an embankment while only sustaining minor injuries. The baby’s father, Timothy Pickens, was arrested, but it is unclear if the mother was as well. 

Collins is a former convict who spent 10 years serving time on drug charges. He said that before he got out of prison, he made a choice to change his ways. He was five years sober at the time of this story. Collins sees the day he saved baby Emily as a sign from God, and in 2019 he was serving meals to those in need in different neighborhoods around the Madison County area. Keep reading to learn more about Collins and the day he saved a little girl from serious danger.

Emily Pickens is incredibly lucky that Collins spotted her by the side of the road as he was driving along.

"I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought it was a baby," Collins recalled to 11Alive in 2016. "I just stopped and, when I got out, there was a baby … almost on the highway."

The entire situation had Collins asking himself: "How could a baby be out here in the middle of nowhere?"

The man waited with the child for two hours and did everything he could to keep her calm. "The baby started crying, so I turned my phone on and let her listen to some gospel music, and she calmed right down."

Collins has a troubled past, but he uses that to push himself toward a better future. "I did 10 years in the federal institution for manufacturing cocaine," he said. "When I was in prison, I made a very conscientious effort to change, and I did."

As for how he was in the right place at the right time, he credits God. “He knew who he chose to do that. He knew I was going to be looking. Most people are not going to be looking. He knew that I was going to be looking both ways and saw that baby in that ditch,” Collins said in 2019.

Now, the former convict uses the platform he gained from saving baby Emily to spread positivity to others.

Collins shared, “You cannot be afraid of your past. I don’t have a problem with people calling me an ex-con. I don’t have a problem with that."

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