MILL CREEK — A week ago, Johanna Castillo was pushing her 1-month-old son, Cruz, in a stroller on a sidewalk near Mill Creek.
A Jeep pulled out of a driveway. Castillo and her son were hit. The stroller wedged at an angle under the fender, according to South Snohomish Fire and Rescue. An aid crew hurried to 132nd Street SE. They found the boy still buckled in, unharmed.
An ambulance took him to a local hospital as a precaution. His mother had bruises, but no serious injuries.
“Obviously she was very shook up,” said David Sherman, a firefighter on the call. “Any time with a child, especially a 5-week-old child, (an emergency) can be pretty stressful.”
The stroller, however, didn’t make it.
Once the Jeep backed up, it dragged the stroller with it. Crews had to pry it free. The frame had bent all out of shape. It was unusable.
“It was to the point of being garbage,” Sherman said.
The mother of six wondered to the Medic 13 crew — Capt. Dan Olson, paramedic Jeanette Anderson and Sherman — how she and her kids would be able to get around. So two days later the South Snohomish crew delivered a new stroller, a model to match the one that was strong enough to protect her son from the Jeep.
Donations to the Good Neighbor Program covered the $143.20 cost of the extra large, two-seater with a standing platform. The program through the nonprofit Fire 1 Foundation allows firefighters to help out the people they meet on 911 calls.
“It’s there when we need to better the situation, without a bunch of red tape,” Sherman said. He has used it to help twice now, he said, in his 11-year career with the fire department in southwest Snohomish County. Other firefighters have dipped into the fund to buy gas, groceries or wheelchair ramps for those in need.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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