Two Ohio brothers are being honored for helping save their mother after she suffered a medical emergency while behind the wheel.
Crystal Thompson was taking her 11-year-old sons Jordan and Jermel Taylor to visit their grandmother when she suffered an epileptic seizure as the family’s SUV was traveling. Jordan noticed that his mom suddenly stopped talking.
“I was like, ‘Jermel, I think she’s about to have a seizure,’ and all I knew was her neck was, like, turned back and it fell against the window,” Jordan said.
The car was heading for a concrete wall on the side of the highway, so Jermel grabbed the steering wheel from his mom. “While she was having the seizure, I thought to myself, ‘Let’s not injure all the people on the road in the cars, and let’s try to keep everybody safe.’ I decided to grab the wheel and turn into a safer place,” he said.
After Jermel steered the SUV into the grass on the side of the highway and helped bring it to a stop in a ditch, his brother Jordan turned off the engine and called 911 to get help for their mom.
Thompson said doesn’t remember any of this, and only realized what had happened when she woke up in the back of an ambulance. “Honestly, I was just so thankful that they knew exactly what to do for me because they’ve seen me have seizures before, but this one really was just out of the blue,” she said.
Police officers who were called to the scene are convinced the boys not only saved their mom and themselves but also protected other drivers on the highway that day.