A stranger helped a woman deliver her baby on a North Philly street. After that, he kept helping.

Late one night, tow truck driver Dave Torres was on his way to see his 19-year-old daughter when he drove down a lonely street in North Philadelphia.

It was in the wee hours of Jan. 3 when he spotted a car pulled to the side of the road, the driver waving at passing motorists to ask for help. It turns out, she needed a very different kind of assistance than a tow, which is what Torres normally provides.

The driver was Latasha James, and she was giving birth.

James had already had a rough night. She told me that she had gone into labor at home, one month before her expected due date. She had summoned paramedics to her home in Harrowgate but was told that they could take her to the nearest hospital, which was Temple University. She preferred Albert Einstein, and decided to drive herself.

But the 34-year-old mother only made it as far as a desolate stretch near Ninth and Wyoming when she realized that her baby’s head already had emerged. He was coming out. She pulled over and frantically tried to wave down passing motorists, to no avail. She was in a vulnerable position — all alone in a car, about to give birth to a premature baby, with no one to help.

That’s when Torres pulled over and got out of his truck.

“I asked him to call EMS. I tell him: ‘I just had my baby. The baby is out of me. He’s sitting right here in my pants.’ That’s all I kept saying. I don’t think he caught on at first,” James said by phone recently, recalling that eventful night. “I’m sitting there with my foot on the gas and the baby in my pants. I didn’t know what to do.”

Torres told me that he took charge by calling 911, moved James’ seat back so she could recline, and began following instructions from the dispatcher.

“I grabbed the baby and put it on her chest,” he told me. “Then they were telling me to tie the umbilical cord up.”

Torres looked around for something to use. Then, he reached into the backseat of James’ car and removed the string from a sneaker belonging to James’ 1-year-old, and wrapped that around the umbilical cord. Torres also removed a new undershirt he had on, bundled the infant in it to keep him warm on that 50-degree January night, and waited until paramedics arrived. As James prepared to leave in the ambulance, she handed Torres — a man she had just met — her keys and asked him to take care of her car.

» READ MORE: Good Samaritan who jumped out of her car on I-95 to save a baby is a hero

James’ family was baffled when they heard the story. “When she told me, ‘He took my car and told me not to worry,’ I told her: ‘Do you have all of the information on him? Who he is taking your car and your keys?’” her mother, Felicia James, told me later when we talked. “She said, ‘Mom, it’s too late for that.’”

It turns out, James was right to trust Torres. True to his word, he towed her car to a privately owned parking lot to keep it safe while she was in the hospital. Once there, she texted Torres to thank him. When it was time for her to be discharged, Torres proved once again to be a good Samaritan — he picked her up at the hospital and drove her to where her car was being held. And she didn’t have to pay a dime.

Back at home with her new baby — who arrived weighing just a little over 4 pounds — James began reflecting on all she’d been through, and reached out to me via social media to tell me about it. “I just want to thank him publicly because he was definitely a saint,” she wrote me.

Torres, who lives in the Rising Sun area, saw a woman was in need, and instead of driving on to see his daughter as he’d planned, he stopped to assist.

“The way I left my car was the way I got it back, with the money in there and everything,” she told me. “He still texts me to this day and asks me how is the baby doing. He’s definitely a good man. ... I told him, ‘I don’t know how I can pay you back.’ He came into my life for a reason.”

Her newborn, K-son James Mathis, spent a few days in the neonatal intensive care unit before being moved to a nursery. He was released from the hospital Jan. 11 and is doing well.

This beautiful story warms my heart.

The hospital “told me if he hadn’t stopped, my baby might not be here,” James recalled. “He was premature and he was only 4 pounds and a few ounces when I had him. That’s why I say, ‘Thank God for [Torres].’”

Maryann Malloy, nurse manager in the neonatal intensive care unit at Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, now a part of Jefferson Health, confirmed this “heartwarming” story. “Latasha and her infant did great and we’re thrilled that someone stopped to help Latasha when she realized she wouldn’t make it in time,” Malloy said.

During one of our phone interviews, Torres told me he was released from prison two years ago after serving 10 years for dealing drugs. Since then, he said, he has worked hard to turn his life around; he texted me a picture of his business card for Jack Boys Inc., a towing and road assistance company that he started himself.

This beautiful story warms my heart.

There are so many headlines out of Philadelphia about people being apathetic, callous, and unkind. It was wonderful to hear about a stranger who went out of his way to help a woman in need with no expectation of anything for himself. That’s the part of Philly that doesn’t make the headlines or nightly news often enough.