Since last Friday morning, coworkers, family and complete strangers have told TriMet bus driver Bill Clark that he's a hero. He laughs it off.

"It was just a corner of my eye thing," the six-year veteran of TriMet bus routes says.

When Clark's 16-ton No. 20 bus passed the little boy -- no older than 2, running barefoot and carrying the weight of a dirty diaper – he was running out into the metal maelstrom of Northeast Division Street in Gresham.

In fact, he was already scampering up the middle of Linden Avenue, a busy side street just west of Division's junction with Northeast Burnside Road.

"I just caught a glimpse of him, stopped the bus and got out to see if his parents were around," Clark, 62, said Thursday morning. "They weren't. So, I picked him up and took him to the (Central Gresham) transit center."

It was shortly before 9 a.m., at the end of the morning commute. Clark said the boy was on course to run into Division Street, one of the region's busiest thoroughfares.

"I can't imagine what would have happened to him," he said.

Gresham police said the child was only wearing a diaper and a T-shirt at the time but was in good health other than having dirty feet and needing his diaper changed.

Clark called into TriMet's dispatch center to see what he should do. Because the idling bus blocked the road, a supervisor told him to take the child and meet police at the Gresham Central Transit Center, which was just a couple blocks away.

The Oregonian's Tom Hallman wrote the first story about the incident:

A social worker was called after authorities were unable to locate the boy's parents, police said.

About 10:30 a.m., nearly two hours after the boy was found, the manager of the Linden Place Apartments called 911 after one of his tenants said his son was missing.

Police interviewed the man and learned the man had worked a late shift Thursday night and was asleep when his son left the apartment without his knowledge. The boy's mother had left for work earlier in the morning, police said.

Police say the boy was reunited with his family.

Clark said he and his wife don't have children, but he gained plenty of experience working with them during his 10 years as a Greyhound bus driver in the Northwest.

It was obvious that the boy was comfortable on public transit, Clark said, but the toddler didn't really say anything to the driver until they were back at the transit center a few blocks away.

Clark brought him a cup of hot chocolate to help him calm his nerves.

Said Clark: "He said, 'Chocolate!'"

-- Joseph Rose