Woman Meets Her Rescuer – level 3
"So, I'm just so thankful to him. He did save me actually, cause if he wasn't there, goodness knows what could have happened to me, anything at all."
Kiran was just 2 hours old when her mother left her in a phone box in the middle of the night in April, 1994. She was rescued by a man wanting to use the phone, and today after 22 years, they were reunited.
"So good to see you!"
"So good to see you, too!"
Her rescuer, Joe Campbell, said at first he thought the baby was an empty chip wrapper as he approached the phone box.
Kiran's frightened mother gave birth alone in her bathroom. Thought to be in a violent relationship, the mother took the baby to a nearby phone box. She claimed she called a local helpline and begged them to come quickly before leaving the baby there alone. They never arrived, but thankfully, Joe did. He called the police and waited with her until they arrived, and the baby was taken to hospital.
Joe wanted to adopt the baby, but he was not eligible at the time. He tried to keep in contact by sending birthday cards, gifts and money, but it was discouraged by the authorities. Kiran went searching for him after discovering who he was in her adoption file.
"It's part of my history. He was the next person after my mum to pick me up, so that's a really big thing to me."
Joe says he had always wondered about the baby he found in the phone box, until now, when she found him.
Difficult words: reunite (meet again), claim (say), helpline (a phone number that you call if you need help), beg (to ask for something), eligible (qualified to do something), discourage (stop), authority (a person in charge of something), search (look for).