Teacher jumps into action after seeing student riding bike on highway, learns he's trying to save his father's life
A 7-year-old boy in South Carolina was on a mission to save his father, when his former elementary school teacher found him biking along a busy highway and offered to help.
Cameron Simoncic told his local TV station WSPA that he had returned home from a day of second grade on Wednesday when he found his father on the kitchen floor, unconscious from diabetic shock, and knew that he needed to take immediate action.
“My dad has diabetes,” the second-grader told the local Carolina outlet, “and whenever he has these episodes and whenever it happens, his brain can’t function.”
Cameron went to dial 911 on his father’s phone, but said he was locked out of his dad’s cell. And when the little boy went over to his neighbors’ houses, nobody was home.
“So I got on my bike and tried to ride to my grandma’s,” Cameron explained.
As he was dodging cars on the 5-mile ride, his first-grade teacher, Keller Sutherland, hadn’t recognized the familiar face before deciding that she needed to pull over.
“I just told my husband, I said, ‘There’s a small child on his bicycle riding down the road. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I feel like I need to just turn around and see what’s going on,'” Sutherland told WSPA.
To her surprise, the little boy was her former first-grade student. Cameron quickly told the teacher what was happening at home and Sutherland helped him remain calm, while another two men who pulled over called 911.
“The ambulance came, the firemen came,” Cameron said. “The firemen were really nice to me.”
According to WSPA, the 7-year-old was able to provide helpful directions to get Sutherland and the first responders to his father’s house, where his dad was given the injections he needed. A pack of crackers that Sutherland had on hand then helped Cameron’s father come to and normalized his blood-sugar levels.
Sutherland did not reply immediately to Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment. However, the network reported that the episode may have been as helpful for her as it was for Cameron’s father. Earlier that day, she told the local network, she had been questioning her choice of career, but she reported that the incident has helped her rediscover her purpose.
“There’s no doubt that God placed me where he did when he needed me,” she said.
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