An unnamed Good Samaritan’s quick thinking is being credited with saving a 12-year-old girl from being kidnapped by a woman believed to be homeless, KTLA reports.

Amy Martinez of Santa Ana, Calif., told reporters that she was walking to school when a strange woman, later identified as Claudia Hernandez Diaz, approached her.

“She just came up to me and went like this,” Martinez said, describing Diaz’s bear hug. “And then she started walking with me away. She told me in Spanish not to cry, but I wasn’t even crying.”

The Lathrop Intermediate School student screamed for help, prompting a female bystander to take action. Cpl. Anthony Bertagna of the Santa Ana police told KTLA that the woman, who also has a student at the school, pretended to be Martinez’s mother and was able to get Diaz to release the girl. She then accompanied Martinez to class, while Diaz was later arrested.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to live’,” the preteen said of the woman’s heroic intervention. (Yahoo)