A five year old girl named Mary Butler did what many might have thought was beyond her capacity on October 13th. During a trip with her mother Nikki, the family truck hit a patch of black ice and flipped over a guardrail, tumbling down a steep 45 meter embankment. Seeing that her mother was unconscious and injured, Mary crawled out of the truck’s smashed rear window, hiked up the embankment, and flagged down the first passing vehicle she saw.
The mother spent six days in Calgary, Canada’s Foothills Hospital, sustaining severe injuries and remaining in a coma for three days. When asked why she did what she did, Mary replied “I needed to save my mom because I love my mom.” She herself sustained only two bruises on her hips, presumably from the safety restraints of her car seat.
This absolutely underscores the need to educate children on the importance of emergency action. We can never know when we might become incapacitated, so teaching your child how to get help is of paramount importance. Teach your child how to call 911 on a cell phone, how to safely flag down moving vehicles, and whom to trust when offered help. Most of all, make sure your child is always safely buckled in to her car seat; as witnessed, they absolutely do save lives.
Comments
Minerva
November 24th, 2009 - 3:20:04 AM
This was sad but beautiful and uplifting all at once. A nice change of pace ...
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