This Guy Uses His Dad Reflexes to Save His Toddler From a Head-First Fall

In a lot of cases, being a parent is all about being able to predict what will happen next, but when babies and small children are involved, being a parent sometimes means acting on pure unfettered instinct. A well-placed nest cam caught one dad diving in for the catch of the year when his two-year-old son Noah was crawling out of his crib and almost fell head first.

“I’ve never made a rescue like that before and honestly, I don’t know if I ever wanna make another one,” Noah’s father, Nicholas Lynch told Inside Edition.

It all went down so quickly that you have to really give Lynch props for seeing what was about to happen and diving in immediately. According to Lynch, it wasn’t until reviewing the video that he could really tell how precarious the situation was.

“I felt that it was pretty close when I caught him. I mean, I felt him maybe inches away from the floor. But after reviewing the video, it was way closer than we thought,” he said.

We’ve all heard if the storied ‘dad reflex,’ where a dad kind of senses something is off and immediately makes a stunning catch like Lynch’s or just pulls their kid right out of harm’s way. What we call a dad reflex is actually a hormone called norepinephrine being pumped into his blood. It increases blood pressure and motor response. Even though women have their own response to danger which increases strength and the ability to ignore pain, norepinephrine is a hormone that men specifically let out it fight or flight situations. It actually heightens their blood pressure and motor response. Regardless, just be happy Lynch made the catch.