HOUSTON – An employee at a Houston-area iFly knew he saved the day just moments after he caught a falling child while on the job.
"Just out of the corner of my eye I saw the child fall and didn’t have that much time to think about it, and next thing I know I’m holding the kid," said Jesse “Tex” Leos, an in instructor at iFly.
Leos was seen on surveillance video snagging a child who lost their balance while standing on the counter at the indoor-skydiving facility.
The man accompanying the child quickly reaches over the counter to offer assistance while the employee celebrates his reactions with a quick flex and thumbs up to the security camera.
“You’re always on your game right when you’re either in the wind tunnel or in the sky, but I guess some of that obviously bleeds over to outside the wind tunnel,” said Leos regarding his cat-like reflexes.
The avid skydiver has worked at iFly for more than three years and is also an instructor at Skydive Spaceland Houston.
He’s known for his tricks inside the wind tunnel at the indoor skydiving facility and for breaking world records in the sky.
Leos said he posted the video for his friends to see but never imagined it would have gone viral.
“I posted it (and) I went home and went, 'Whoa, that’s probably more likes than I’ve ever gotten on a Facebook video in one hour,'” said Leos. “I woke up this morning to texts from people that I haven’t talked to in quite a while explaining to me what Reddit was (and) all these different sites that were showing the video, so that was quite a trip.”
Tex attributes his quick thinking to all of his training at iFly and in the sky.
“We train to keep people as safe as possible inside the tunnel,” said Leos. “Definitely my reflexes were quick, and I can attest to that’s the training that we do every day here.”
He said the parents of the toddler were grateful he was there.
“We both just kind of had a laugh at it and it was kind of one of those ‘that just happened’ kind of moments that turned out great,” said Leos.
The family continued with their iFly session after the incident according to Leos.