MANKATO, Minn. — Authorities in Mankato say a 2-year-old child is okay after tumbling from the back seat of a moving vehicle while still strapped in a car seat.
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Dash camera video captured the moment the car seat and toddler rolled out of the vehicle which was turning a corner along Minnesota Street in Mankato and kept going. Chad Mock was driving behind the car when it happened just before 11:45 a.m. on Monday. He stopped and ran to the child's aid.
"I guess my original reaction to it was just disbelief. It's still disbelief. You don't expect to see something fall like that out of a car," Mock told KARE 11.
Mock said he's happy the girl is OK and said that when he first approached her, she was very calm.
According to the Mankato Department of Public Safety, officers and paramedics responded to the incident and found that the child was not injured.
"It appears that the child was strapped into the child safety seat however the seat itself wasn't tethered and strapped into the vehicle properly or somehow at that point the door comes open and the seat then comes loose from inside and the child falls out of the vehicle," Mankato Department of Public Safety Commander Daniel Schisel said.
According to Cmdr. Schisel, the child's mother was driving the vehicle. He does not believe anyone else was inside the vehicle at the time the child fell out.
"The mother actually goes through that intersection and pulls over and parks and walks back to the incident location," Cmdr. Schisel said.
Mock said, as a truck driver, he has seen a lot of crazy things out on the road.
"This is probably the most unique, craziest thing I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of stuff going down the road behind the wheel of a truck but I've never seen anyone's kid fall out of the back of their vehicle."
Police say the Blue Earth County Attorney's Office is reviewing this incident to consider charges of child endangerment and child restraint system not properly fastened. The Mankato Department of Public Safety has also sent a letter to Human Services for them to review the case.