Good Samaritan Bill Gorga describes chasing after thief who stole car with baby inside

GREENPORT, N.Y. -- A good Samaritan wasted no time to help a frantic grandmother on Long Island's East End. 

Police say a carjacker with a criminal history took off in her car with her young grandchild strapped into the back seat. 

What happened next sounds like a scene from a movie. 

"And I hear somebody screaming," Bill Gorga said. 

Gorga was seated in his pickup when a frantic grandmother ran out of an East End North Fork store. 

"'What's going on? What's the matter?' 'That car just left with my baby in it,'" he recalled. 

Across from the ferry and post office, theater and bakery, along Front Street in Bucolic Greenport, a stranger was racing away in a stolen luxury SUV. The victim's 14-month-old toddler grandchild was asleep in the back. 

"What? This is not good," Gorga said. 

He told the grandmother to jump into his truck, and the chase was on.

"He went through Southold town doing, like, 70 or 80," Gorga said. 

Yet Gorga, a retired marine engineer from East Marion, remained calm. 

"I says 'Grab your phone and start calling 911.' She couldn't do that. She was hysterical," Gorga said. 

He somehow managed to box in the carjacker on the shoulder. 

"My hand is on the horn to alert people. He goes, 'Get your baby.' He goes, 'I don't want the baby,'" Gorga said. 

As the grandmother exited the picked and reached for the baby in the car seat, she ended up in her SUV with the suspect accelerating away. 

"I says 'He's got both of them. What did I just do?' I wanted to cry at that point," Gorga said. 

For five miles, Gorga was on the tail. Finally, the thief released the grandmother and baby.

"They're safe. They're fine," Gorga said. 

The carjacker soon crashed into a guardrail, where Southold Police put him in handcuffs. 

The 55-year-old suspect had just been released from jail in Yaphank five months ago. He pleaded not guilty in this case, and was ordered held without bail. His license was suspended, and an order of protection issued for the child and grandmother. 

"She probably thought she had locked the vehicle with her fob, but it didn't lock," said Southold Chief of Police Martin Flatley. "We never want to see a child unattended anywhere - especially in a vehicle." 

"i was just a guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time," Gorga said. 

A humble good Samaritan. 

Already this year, Kids and Car Safety has documented 35 cases in the U.S. where children were left alone in vehicles that were stolen.