3-year-old boy found wandering in the middle of the street alone and barefoot

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - A Good Samaritan likely saved a little boy’s life after she saw him wandering alone late in the evening and barefoot.

Maria Briones says she was driving on Brownie Campbell Road in Northwest Harris County when a neighbor alerted her to the boy running along the middle of the road. The Harris County Sheriff's Office report the boy is 3 years old.

She stopped the car and put the boy inside.

"I only had like 30 seconds to just get him and move around because I didn’t want him to get hit," she told FOX 26. 

It all happened on Sunday around 8 p.m. as it was getting dark. Briones remembers the boy was crying and calling out for his mother. 

"He had clothes that didn’t even fit him. He had no drawers, and he had, like, poop on his leg," he recalled.

Maria and a neighbor waited with the boy until Harris County deputies arrived.

"The cops did take him around the whole neighborhood trying to see if somebody was claiming him or screaming out for him, but nobody did," Briones said saddened.

Biones says she hasn’t stopped thinking about the boy wondering if he’s okay and if she’ll ever know his name.

"It was piggy and mommy -- those were the only two words he said the whole time he was with us," she said.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office did confirm the identity of the boy’s father, Francisco Padilla Acuna, who was arrested and charged with child endangerment. He was released on $1,500 bond.