30-year-old trans man Lio Cundiff has been hailed as a hero for jumping into Chicago’s frigid Lake Michigan to save a baby whose stroller was blown into the water by a strong gust of wind.

Cundiff recounted hearing the mother scream and then observing her being frozen in shock. “And so I just jumped in,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “My only thing was, ‘You got to get this baby out of here.’ If she’s going down, I’ll go down with her, but the goal is to get us both up.”

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Cundiff told ABC 7 Chicago that the mother was clearly “too panicked to do anything.”

“I was, like, ‘I guess I’m jumping in… I wasn’t going to let that baby die. That’s crazy.”

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He held on to the stroller, in which the 8-month-old girl was strapped, while treading water for several minutes. He said the pair went under a few times, but they were ultimately helped up a ladder to safety and transported to hospitals in separate ambulances. Both are reportedly in good condition.

“I’m just glad the stroller was up, not face down,” Cundiff said, speaking to ABC from his hospital bed. “The baby dipped under a couple times, but I was able to keep her up. And she was breathing and crying when we got her out.”

“I hope she has a really cool future, and I’m happy I was there,” Cundiff said.

“I’m so happy that this baby has a chance for a future and a life,” Cundiff’s mom, Karen Cundiff, told the Tribune. “I’m so glad both [he] and the baby are OK because both of them could have died.”

Cundiff has also defended the mother, who has reportedly been criticized for causing the accident due to alleged carelessness. “When you almost lose your kid like that, you don’t need the world judging you too, especially when it wasn’t anything on purpose,” he said. “There was no neglect or anything like that. It was just a freak accident.”

Cundiff is a comedian and performs across the city. He described his sense of humor as “darker” and said his harrowing experience may come up in his future sets.

His best friend also started a GoFundMe for his medical expenses and lost wages, calling him a “true hero.”

“He’s always been the first to make others laugh and lend a helping hand,” the fundraiser states, “and now he needs our support more than ever.”

In an interview with the Guardian, Cundiff said he hopes the moment emphasizes that trans people are just human beings. “Because all I did was a human act,” he said. “We are human, and we’re the same as everyone else. And we don’t deserve the hate that we’ve gotten.”

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