Persistent 10-year-old’s hunch leads to a life-saving rescue

Danny DiPietro, a 10-year-old from Howell, Michigan, was in the car with his dad on the way home from a hockey game when he made a life-saving observation out of the corner of his eye. As reported by WXYZ 7 Action News, the young boy thought he saw a dog in an open garage.

Danny told the station, "It was like late at night and it was super cold out. I just, and their garage was open and something just didn't feel right." That feeling stayed with him and when the father and son got home, Danny told his mother, Dawn DiPietro, “I was like, ‘Can you just go up there to check it out?’

When he expressed concern that he thought a dog was left out, Ms. DiPietro reassured her son that no one would leave their dog out in such cold weather. The mother recalled, “So he walked out of the room and came back and he said, ‘No, can we just go up there?’ He goes, ‘It’s, you know, something’s not right.’ I said, ‘Ok.’”

Finally giving in, Dawn decided to take the family dog out for a walk past the condo that Danny mentioned. It was there that she saw someone on the ground of the open garage, waving their hands for help. The woman on the floor of the garage was 80-year-old Kathleen St. Onge, who took a tumble after slipping on ice that fell off her car. "So I ran back called my husband. He ran up there with a blanket. Got my next door neighbor, and then was on the phone with 911,” explained Dawn.

The DiPietros arrived just in time as doctors told Kathleen’s family that she may not have survived another hour in the freezing cold. Ms. St. Onge is doing better and is recovering in the hospital. Her daughter, Sandy St. Onge-Mitter, met with Danny in person to express the family’s gratitude. She also relayed a message from her mother saying, “She is very emotional when she talks about Danny and she says, 'That little boy saved my life. Just thank goodness for that little boy. Thank goodness for his hunch and his persistence.’ And she knows as well as everybody else that she’s alive because of him."

Video and more info: WXYZ