23-year-old Orange Co. Sheriff's Deputy to be honored for saving infant from car fire

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Deputy Dustin Rosenbaum has only been on the job with the Orange County Sheriff's Department a few months. He's just 23-years-old and was having a slow Sunday when he got a call at 6:40 p.m. for a car accident.

Someone was trapped.

When Deputy Rosenbaum got on the scene, he found a car in flames with a 5-month-old child inside.

"I knew immediately I had to get the child out of the vehicle," he recalled. "I knew vehicle fires can spread quickly so I knew I didn't have time to waste."

The young deputy sprang into action, keeping an eye on the crying infant -- and the growing flames.

"At that point, I was looking for anything I could find to break the window because we were unable to open the doors," Rosenbaum said. "It really surprised me how hard that window was to break. For some reason I struck the window probably six or seven times with everything I had."

By the time he got the window open, the fire was through the windshield and moving to the interior of the car. Rosenbaum reached into the window to unlatch the baby's car seat.

"She was restrained and crying. I knew that was good -- she was alert at that point," he said.

Deputy Rosenbaum pulled the infant to safety just in time, minutes before the car was engulfed in flames.

The child's family was grateful, but didn't want to talk to us on camera. The driver, and baby's father Bradley Garrison, was arrested after the crash on charges of neglect of a dependent and operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

The child's grandmother, Mary Hagemier, said, "I don't know what we would have done if it hadn't been for him she might have burned up in that car."

"I just feel like I was doing my job. I know any officer I work with or across the nation would have done the same thing in the same situation," Deputy Rosenbaum said.

Rosenbaum happened to be two minutes away when he got the call -- instead of clear across the county as he might have been. A fortunate coincidence.

"I think it would have played out very different if I had been much further than I was," he said. "I definitely think God had a huge part in the way everything turned out. I believe everything happens for a reason."

On Wednesday, the Orange County Sheriff's Department is honoring Deputy Rosenbaum with a lifesaving award.