Jonathan Bauer is afraid of heights, but that didn’t stop him from leaping off a bridge some 25 to 40 feet to the water below to save a little girl’s life.

On May 2, Bauer and his teenage daughter Ava were running errands when they got caught in a serious five-car pileup on the Route 90 bridge over Maryland’s Assawoman Bay. The accident sent eight people to the hospital and left a pickup truck dangling precariously over the guardrail.

After making sure Ava was okay, Bauer got out of his car to see if anyone needed help. As he headed toward the teetering truck, its passenger alerted him to a heart-wrenching sight—a toddler, ejected from the passenger side, was floating in the bay, her pink dress billowing in the waves.