The kindhearted officer who was seen going above and beyond the call of duty in a touching photo posted to Facebook by his coworker is talking about the encounter.
Commerce Police Officer Kay Denton was at the scene of a wreck on Interstate 85 when she witnessed her colleague lying on the ground on the left side of a car.
“This officer was not hurt or injured in any way,” Officer Denton said. “This officer was comforting a child who was injured in the accident.”
According to Denton, the 8-year-old boy had suffered some internal injuries and was scared to death.
“This officer laid on the ground with this child, cradling his head in his hand and talking to him to keep him calm,” Denton said.
The sweet gesture didn’t stop there.
“And we just talked about school and his favorite video games and this and that. I asked him how old he was and he told me it was his birthday. So, then I sang happy birthday to him. Just anything to get his mind off of what was going on,” said Corporal Chris Holly.
“At one point the child reached over and patted the officer on the head and then played with the officer’s hair!” exclaimed Denton.
“To help people, to be there for them no matter what the circumstances and no matter what skin color,” Denton said. “I pray that this beautiful little boy is okay and I thank God that I work with some amazing officers who are so compassionate and caring!”
“To me, it’s not really a big deal. There’s police officers all over the United States doing the same thing every day. You know, it’s just what we do. This kind of stuff is 90 percent of our job; 10 percent of it is, you know, catching bad guys, car chases, that kind of stuff,” said Holly.
Denton said that when Holly found out that Saturday was the boy’s birthday, he also sang “Happy Birthday” to him.
Denton went on to thank her fellow officer for making her proud. Her Facebook post has been shared more than 4,000 times.
Holly has been with the Commerce Police Department since 2013, he has been a sworn officer for 10 years.
He is one of the department’s supervisors for the traffic team and a K-9 handler.
“Cpl. Holly has been an exceptional officer during his time with our department,” Tracy Williams of the city of Commerce said.
Sources: OpposingViews, WSB-TV, Facebook post