TORONTO – A Tennessee toddler is being called a hero after he came to the rescue of an elderly man who got himself locked inside a hot car.
Three-year-old Keith Williams ran to get help for Bob King, who was sitting in his car in a church parking lot.
King, 68, said he was waiting for his wife when he began to feel nervous and felt the temperature rising.
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King said he had been having trouble with the door of his vehicle and was too weak to push it open.
He said he was in “very bad shape” after undergoing several cancer treatments and having suffered two strokes in the past few months.
As temperatures inside the car reached over 120 degrees Fahrenheit (about 50 degrees Celsius), King said he was unable to turn on the air conditioner because he didn’t have the car key.
READ MORE: How to keep your child safe from heat stroke in cars
That’s when King said he noticed Williams walking by. King said he knocked on the car’s window repeatedly and yelled at the boy to help.
It is unclear whether Williams was accompanied by an adult.
The toddler was not strong enough to open the door himself and ran over to a volunteer at a church event nearby to get help.
“He kept pulling at my hand and eventually I turned around and looked at him,” pastor Jack Greene told ABC News. “I said, ‘What’s going on?’ He said, ‘locked, locked!'”
Greene followed the child to the parking lot and saw King in the car. After a few tries, the pastor said he was able to get the car door opened.
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King said he could have waited for another 20 minutes before his wife came back.
“I’m very thankful,” he said. “I don’t know how long it had been.”
Williams’ mother said she taught her son about hot car safety just two days ago.
“I am very impressed and I’m proud that he would know what to do,” said Jessie Williams.
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