Dad Saves Boy Before Car Plunges Down Cliff -- And Gets Pair Of Traffic Tickets

A New Jersey dad got the scare of his life when his 5-year-old son almost ran off a steep embankment, and though the man saved the boy from falling, he couldn't stop his Jeep from going over the precipice and into a river below.

The reward for his ordeal? Two traffic tickets from local police.

Frank Roder, a construction worker from the town of Winfield Park, had taken his son, Aidan, down to the Rahway River to feed ducks Thursday. But when he stopped briefly before settling on a parking space, the impatient boy jumped out and took off -- straight toward a ledge 35 feet above the river, Roder recalled.

"He hopped out, and I thought that was OK, I was just going to park," Roder, 38, said, but "he just took off, made a beeline for the edge."

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