A Nelson Mandela Bay metro police officer says he feels "good" after catching a 1-year-old girl whose father had thrown her from their shack in Port Elizabeth.
"I saved a life yesterday," Constable Luyolo Nojulumba said with a smile at a media briefing on Friday.
"The first thing in my mind was just to save that baby… we wanted to make sure that the baby would not fall down."
GALLERY: From negotiations to arrest, see how a man flung his child from the roof of their home
Nojulumba was deployed to the Joe Slovo informal settlement on Thursday for crowd management during a demolition process by the municipality.
A man had climbed onto his shack in an attempt to prevent the structure from being destroyed.
Calm officers
A police officer attempted to talk him down.
"As the man was grabbed by police, he threw his child [from] the roof. Fortunately, a member of the metro police caught the girl and the father was arrested," police spokesperson Captain Andre Beetge said on Friday.
Nojulumba said the mother had asked officers to leave her husband and shack alone. She told them there was no way they could leave the area without their shack.
He said the authorities on the scene were calm during the drama and knew exactly what to do.
SEE: PE man throws baby from roof of shack during demolition
Beetge said that the father, 38, and mother, 35, had been taken, along with their 13-month-old child, to the police station to be interviewed.
"It was decided that the mother would be released and the baby [kept] in her care. This is with intervention and oversight from social services."
Charges could still be laid against her if the investigation uncovered that she had a role in her child being thrown.
A police officer talks to the father. (Supplied)
Police take the baby to safety. (Supplied)
Her father was expected to appear in the New Brighton Magistrate's Court on Monday.
Mayor Athol Trollip shared a letter on his Twitter account in which the metro police commended Nojulumba for his "outstanding performance".
"During this operation you prevented serious injury or murder of a one-year-old baby," the letter read.
"Your keen sense of responsibility in the performance of your duties reflect great credit upon yourself and the Metro Police Department that you serve."
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