Young girls hailed as heroes for thwarting abduction attempt

Two young girls are being hailed for their courage after police said they stopped an attempted abduction in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Eleven-year-old Kristen Winslow said she was playing in her backyard pool with her friend Cienna Lukegord when she looked up to see Cienna's 6-year-old sister being dragged from the yard by a man.

"I saw him pulling him Lilly...it was scary," Kristen said to MyFoxBoston.com.

Kristen and Cienna ran to help, hopping a fence surrounding the backyard and chasing the man down the street, before confronting him and grabbing Cienna's sisters' arms.

Kristen said she was scared, but knew she had to help.

"It was my best friend's sister. What if she got taken?" Kristen said.

Kristen's mother said she was inside the house when the girls began screaming for help.

"They said, 'Oh my god Mom, there’s this guy taking Lilly!' So we just ran out in the front," Christel Dawson said.

Dawson said the man, who police later identified as Timothy Wallingford, was acting erratic and appeared to be on drugs. Dawson, still holding her 3-month-old son, followed Wallingford as he tried to run down the street, and called police.

"My intentions were just to get this guy off the street, and I didn’t know what he was up to, ya know?" Dawson said.

Police arrested Wallingford and he was arraigned and held on a $100,000 bond. Dawson said she is proud of her daughter for her courage against a man nearly twice her size.

"I would have been intimidated by him, so I’m very very proud of my daughter. She did the right thing, because you don’t know where it could have led, ya know?" Dawson said.