A fast-food worker jumped out his drive-thru window to help an off-duty Florida police officer suffering a medical emergency.
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Pedro Viloria told Miami news stations the Miami-Dade County officer had her two children in her car Tuesday while at a McDonald’s outlet.
“Her kids were screaming, ‘Mother, mother, stop it — mother, what are you doing?’” Viloria told WFOR.
Viloria says the officer was struggling to breathe when he returned to the window with the family’s breakfast. He says the officer became unconscious and her foot slipped off the brake.
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Surveillance video shows the SUV rolling forward and Viloria jumping out the drive-thru window to pull her from the vehicle. Viloria says he went into “hero mode” and had to help her.
“I thought, ‘If those kids lose their mother today, that’s going to be tragic,’” he said.
Paramedics happened to be in the restaurant and helped revive the woman, who was hospitalized.
“I was with the kids, telling them it was going to be all right,” Viloria said.
“I think I speak for our McDonald’s family when I say how proud we are of Pedro,” the owner of the McDonald’s outlet, Alex Menendez, said in a statement. “He is an excellent employee, so it didn’t surprise me that he took immediate action and jumped through a window to help save this woman.”
Miami-Dade Police Detective Daniel Ferrin said no information about the officer’s condition was available Wednesday.
-With files from Global News