Dad dragged man off motorbike in busy street to protect daughter

DAD Felipe Ferreira has relived the moment he dragged a motorcyclist from his bike to stop him riding into his daughter.

The 26-year-old was walking down Queen Street in Cardiff city centre when he spotted the biker heading toward daughter Maya.

The two-year-old had no idea she was within inches of being run down by the rider – who ran away after being stopped by Felipe.

As reported in Saturday’s Echo, in footage of the incident, which happened on Friday, he can be heard shouting: “Oi! What the **** are you doing? That’s my daughter.”

“It was a bit of a weird moment,” said Felipe, who is originally from Brazil but who now lives in Cardiff.

“I saw him as I was walking down the high street and my little girl was running around.”

The tot was a couple of metres ahead of Felipe and his wife Petya, 26.

“The rider was talking to a bloke on the other side of the road, a funny looking bloke to be honest,” Felipe said.

As the baseball hatted man rode toward his pal, Felipe intercepted him.

“Before I knew it he was right on top of my daughter, we are not even talking a metre,” he said. “What worried me is that he was not looking at her but at the bloke.

“When I shouted ‘oi’ he stopped and my daughter was right in front of the bike.

“It was a really close call. If I hadn’t seen him he would have gone over her, 100%.”

Felipe, who works in the Llanelli branch of Nando’s, asked what he was doing. He said the man hurled abuse at him.

“I’m not normally that angry,” he said.

“But I was like ‘What the **** are you doing? You almost ran over my daughter.’ He told me to ‘ ****** off’ and tried to ride off again.”

Felipe is a biker himself. He said there was no way the man could have steered around his daughter.

“If he had ridden off again he would have hit her, because there was no way he could manoeuvre out of there,” he said.

“I grabbed the back of his shirt and he tried getting away from me but I held on and he started coming off the bike.”

A security guard came toward the pair.

“I looked at the security guy and said ‘This man almost ran over my daughter,” Felipe said. “But the man got up from the floor and ran away.

“I was just there to have a nice day with my family. I don’t get to go out so running much because I work in Llanelli.

“My daughter is everything I have and I have to protect her.”

Despite the excitement insisted he was not shaken up.

“I was just relieved my daughter was OK,” he said. “She was kind of shocked. She was definitely scared when I picked her up.

“She is only two and just saw this huge thing coming toward her. I’m just glad she is OK and no-one was hurt.

“I don’t understand what the guy was thinking,” Felipe added. “The whole thing was over in maybe 20 seconds.”

The whole incident was over in a Felipe flash and afterwards the family visited the nearby merry-go-round on the street.

On Facebook people said they had seen the white motorcycle being driven on Queen Street earlier in the day.

“I sat down for lunch with my wife and I started getting messages from friends saying, ‘Felipe, are you OK?.’

“I was like, ‘How do you guys know about it?’ And they said, ‘It’s all over WalesOnline.’”

South Wales Police said on Friday they were still looking for the rider and that the bike was recovered from the scene.