A 12-year-old girl in Arkansas received an award of heroism earlier this week for stopping a car while her mother was having a seizure.
Melaniah Andrade, was able to remain calm in a very stressful situation to safely stop the car and guide troopers to their location.
"They first had me put it in park," said Melaniah. Melaniah Andrade isn't old enough to drive a car. "And then you turn it off, take out the keys, and put the hazard lights on."
But stopping one from the passenger seat might have saved her, and her mother's lives.
"She wasn't talking to me, and she wasn't really responding back to what I was, like, saying, or what I was doing," said Melaniah.
Melaniah and her mother, Nicole Johnson, were heading home after shopping when she started having a seizure.
"It was such a scary moment in both of our lives, you know, nothing that had ever happened," said Johnson.
That's when Melaniah Andrade called 9-1-1.
Call:
911 What's the address of your emergency?" "Um, so, I'm at Tar- well I was at Target, and my mom, she was not talking to me, and she was just saying 'come on, come on, come on' and we're driving right now, and I'm saying 'Mom can you talk to me?' And she's calling me mom and I'm not sure what's going on.
She was able to guide dispatch to her and her mother by telling them the roads they were crossing, and eventually stopping the car.
"I put it in park. I put it in park," she told 9-1-1. "Get the keys out," said dispatch. "I just did," said Melaniah.
The next week, Wasilla police and the Alaska State Troopers presented Andrade with an award of heroism for her bravery.
"I feel like I did a good job," said Melaniah. "I feel like, as other people told me they would've done something totally different, like something bad would've happened."
And Johnson couldn't be more proud...
"I definitely see that she is very mature," said Johnson. "And that makes me extremely proud."
