Moment schoolboy, 9, stops neighbour’s new van rolling down a hill

This is the moment a ‘superhero’ schoolboy single-handedly saved his neighbour’s brand-new van from rolling down a hill and smashing into a row of parked cars.

Kameron Hunter, nine, was playing football in front of his home in Nelson, Lancashire, when he spotted the week-old vehicle inching out of the parking space where it had spent the past two hours.

Shocking ring doorbell footage shows how Kameron – who weighs just 5 1/2 stone – instinctively ran into the Vauxhall Vivaro’s path before bringing it to a standstill with his bare hands.

He told MailOnline how he leapt into action because neighbour Matt Sharples had just bought the van for work and he didn’t want him to ‘be upset’ with three young children and a baby on the way.

‘I didn’t really know if I would be able to stop it,’ he admitted.

Kameron Hunter, nine, (pictured) single-handedly saved his neighbour’s brand-new van from rolling down a hill

Kameron with van owner Matt Sharples and neighbour Caitlin Greenwood in front of the van 

Kameron was playing football in front of his home when he spotted the vehicle inching out of its parking space and stopped it with his bare hands 

‘I didn’t know I had that kind of, I guess superpower. But I stopped it because I didn’t want Matt to get upset, he has a family to work for and he needs that van. Helen is pregnant and they have three children they need to look after. I was 50 per cent nervous, but 50 per cent confident I could stop it.

The aspiring footballer says he was inspired into action by the charity efforts of Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford.

He added: ‘Marcus inspired me by helping loads of people during Covid. If I were to ever meet him I’d burst into tears.’

Mum Lyndsay Hunter, 30, said she was ‘extremely proud’ of her heroic son – but admitted that her first thought was to scream ‘don’t you ever touch a rolling van again’.

She said: ‘I can’t believe he stopped it. I couldn’t believe it when everyone came and told me.

‘I’m extremely proud. He’s always helping everyone around here, he helps neighbours with groceries and plays with the kids, he’s just that kind of boy. I did say to him ‘don’t you ever touch a rolling van again’.

‘But he was like ‘but mum, Helen has a baby on the way and they’ve got three children and he’d just bought that van for work, I didn’t want him to be upset.’

The child said he leapt into action because his neighbour had just bought the van for work and he didn’t want him to be ‘upset’

‘I didn’t really know if I would be able to stop it,’ Kameron said about the van 

Kameron poses in front of the van in a superhero outfit after stopping the vehicle rolling down a hill 

Neighbours Matt Sharples and Helen Reavley bought the van for their new business just a week ago, and had it stickered and ready to go just a day before.

Pregnant Helen said: ‘We are incredibly grateful. It’s Kameron, he is like family. Matt literally bought the van in that week and he’s waited seven months to get the business going. If it had crashed into the lamppost, it would’ve been disastrous.

‘That said, I didn’t expect him to. As soon as I saw it, I was shouting to him to get away from the van’

To celebrate, Matt and Helen took Kameron out for dinner, and bought him a superhero cape and Playstation gift cards.

Lyndsay added: ‘The funniest thing is I was upstairs and telling Kameron to come in because it was coming to tea time.

‘He said no and refused to come. I can’t get him in the house, he wants to play out 24/7.

‘Looking back, I believe everything happens for a reason, and I believe he was out there for that reason to stop the van. It’s like he had a sixth sense.’

‘He’s got all the consoles, everything, and he still wants to be outside with his football.

‘That’s what a lot of people are coming to me surprised about.

‘He just wants to play football. He’s obsessed with Marcus Rashford to the point where he thinks he’s going to be Marcus Rashford.

‘And he is. He’s just going to be Kameron Hunter instead.’

She laughed: ‘For all the people asking why didn’t he put the football under the van to stop it, he’d just bought that that morning, do you think he’d let that get destroyed?’

Kameron chimed in: ‘I wouldn’t let the ball get squashed.’