Fetch me my smelling salts; these kids are going to kill me. 

First a 3-year-old was found driving his Power Wheels down a busy Florida highway, and now an Oregon toddler has escaped his house in order to RUN DOWN THE MIDDLE OF HIGHWAY 101 IN THE DARK. Do you know how much is scares me to see adults walking on the side of the road in the dark? A lot. It scares me a lot. Because when you are walking at night, if you aren't covered in reflective tape, you are INVISIBLE. Obviously this 2-year-old doesn't know that, but it highlights (er, lowlights?) the fact that this could have ended very, very badly. 

Thankfully, by some miracle, the first person to happen along this miniature escape artist was Lincoln County Deputy Jeremy Gautney. As Gautney slows his patrol vehicle, dashcam video shows a tiny moving object coming into view, and that's when you realize that it's an almost-baby in the middle of the road. The car stops, Gautney scoops up the toddler, and the next vehicle to come along is a semi-trailer. It is at this point that many viewers will die of a heart attack. 

In an effort to highlight how easy it is for this to happen to ANYONE, the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office decided to release the video. They emphasize that they are not doing this for jerk reasons: 

"Shortly after removing the child from the highway, Deputy Gautney was alerted to the child’s frantic parents who were searching for him," said Lincoln County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Curtis Landers. "The child was returned to them unharmed."
Landers said the family had been cleaning up after a nearby gathering when the child slipped out through an open door and ran straight to the highway." 
"The following video is for educational purposes and not intended to ridicule or question those involved," Landers said. "The incident was investigated thoroughly and determined to be accidental and no criminal charges will be brought to the parties involved."

So remember, this is a super scary thing that happened that will give the child's parents nightmares for the rest of their shortened-by-stress lives. Nobody is able to watch their child at every single second, and a second is all it takes for something terrible to happen, so don't be a Judgy Judy. Authorities are releasing the video because they know the best way to ensure that this would happen to someone is for that someone assume that it could never happen to them. A little paranoia (and a lot locks) goes a long way towards keeping a child safe.