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A 12-year-old boy heroically saved the lives of his mother and others by taking control of the vehicle they were travelling in and steering it to safety after she passed out behind the wheel.
Nicola Crump (37) from Ebbw Vale, Wales, was driving to a Christmas market with her child when she suddenly began to fall ill and told Zac Howells that she was about to pass out. Crump said they had planned on getting a McDonald’s on the way, but at one point she began to feel “really hot”, according to a report by the Daily Mail.
Crump fainted before she could steer the car to safety and switch it off. As the mother lost consciousness, her foot pressed on the accelerator while the car was in the left lane of a dual carriageway, and the vehicle sped up to around
97 kmph on the road.
However, the schoolboy calmly leaned across and managed to steer the vehicle onto a grassy land to slow it down, before dialling the authorities.
“The next thing I could remember is coming around and seeing we were on the central reservation,” said Crump. “We had been on the left of the road and now we were on the right-hand side of the road by the barrier. I was asking Zac: ‘Have we crashed?'”
However, Zac told her, “You’re alright”, as the police arrived on the scene. Crump was unconscious for around seven or eight minutes as Zac manoeuvred the car and gave the emergency services their location, as per the report.
“Zac is my hero, he saved both our lives. But he’s very modest about it and doesn’t know what all the fuss is about,” she added. “He turned the engine off because there’s a stop-start button on my car and when the police needed the satnav he turned it back on to give them the road. It was such quick thinking, it’s incredible.”
The mother-of-two was found to be suffering from low blood pressure and was referred to a cardiologist for further tests before she gets back behind the wheel. Crump said the police officers were amazed to see how calm Zac was while speaking to them. “I was really scared but I knew I had to do something. When I was on the phone to 999, I saw her belly was moving so I knew she was breathing,” he told them.
Zac was later invited to West Mercia Police’s headquarters outside Worcester, where he was awarded a bravery certificate. “He literally saved our lives and who knows who else’s lives. Thank God he thought so quickly and was so brave because we both could’ve died. You don’t prepare for anything like that!” his mother told the Daily Mail.
“It was just incredible – his quick thinking, the way he stayed so calm, the way he spoke to the police, the way he reassured me. He wasn’t panicking, he was just unbelievable.”
