Calgary Transit staff are being celebrated Wednesday after their quick thinking helped frantic parents find their four-year-old son.
Kayden was separated from his parents at Westbrook Station and hopped onto a CTrain alone Tuesday night.
“We ran to grab some groceries at Walmart, came back here and the train arrived like it always does,” father Daniel Petke said Wednesday. “Basically he jumped on the train right away like he always does…and I turn around and my wife was not quite right behind me, and I run back to grab the groceries, and help her onto the train.
“By the time I got back to the train it was shutting, and I slammed on the button, started banging on the door, I was yelling, ‘that’s my son, that’s my son’ and it was a very scary moment.”
Petke said he hit the help button, and “within a minute” staff was calming him down, explaining his son could be seen on train cameras and was okay.
“It was right out of a movie for me: the door closed, there was nothing I could do. I was slamming on the button, my son’s looking right at me, yelling, ‘daddy!’
“It was heart-wrenching just watching the train pull away. I chased it for a moment before I realized, ‘what am I doing? I can’t chase a train.'”
After the boy rode in the driver cabs of two CTrains, he was re-united with his father and mother, Brittni.