Real Super Powers

During the afternoon of Thursday, May 18, 1995, Karl Sharrock of Lamar, Colorado was driving girlfriend Tony Taylor of Ulysses, Kansas and their 1-year-old daughter, Carrolyn Taylor along Colorado 101, a mile south of Las Animas, Colorado in a 1976 Chevy Chevette hatchback. No one was wearing seat belts, the baby wasn't strapped into a seat as stipulated by law, and Sharrock, then 32, may or may not have had alcohol in his system.

At some point, the hatchback left the road and hit a culvert and tree, throwing the baby from the vehicle into a muddy area next to an irrigation ditch. The car then spun closer and closer toward the infant, finally coming to rest on top of her, pinning her to the ground, and trapping most of her body. The rest of the car sank firmly into the mud. Someone called the police.

The first officer to arrive on scene, Deputy Mario Magdaleno of the Bent County Sheriff's Department would later remember his first sensation as being the sound of a baby girl crying. His heart dropped when the father hurriedly told him to get a jack out of the police car because his daughter was trapped under the wreck.

Magdaleno quickly tried the jack, but had little luck getting it between the car and the mud. The car had sunk in so deeply, there was no space for the jack to fit. No one else was there to help, as a passing train blocked the newly-arriving officers from the scene. Time was a factor.

Without giving it a second thought, the officer advised the mother, then 27, to pull her baby to safety as soon as he moved the car. Then, bending down and leaning into the vehicle, he picked it up off of the little girl.

Asked later what had been going through his head, Magdaleno said he had two daughters of his own, 11 and 13. "My mind was on that girl crying and trying to get her out. I thank the guy upstairs for helping me," he responded.

Free at last, the baby and her parents went to the Arkansas Valley Regional Medical Center in La Junta, Colorado for observation and treatment. The little girl ended up with potential head injuries and a broken leg. The father had broken several ribs, and spent a night in observation at the hospital with his daughter. The mother had suffered a broken finger, and was free to leave without staying the night.

A short time after lifting the car, Deputy Magdaleno noticed some pain in his upper back. He then went to the emergency room, where he learned he had hurt a few muscles, but that the damage wasn't serious. The mother of the girl he helped tracked him down at the hospital, and asked how he was doing. Then she thanked him for saving her baby.