The compassion of a six-year-old child may have made a life-saving difference for a man with diabetes, Nov. 13.
Summer Hallowell and her son, Carson, were driving to their home in Bremen at approximately 8 p.m. that night when they came upon a car, stopped in the middle of the road with its brake lights on.
“We stopped behind it for a few minutes,” Hallowell said. “It never moved or anything. I flashed the lights. Carson was in the backseat behind me.”
“Carson said, ‘I don’t see his head, Momma (sic),'” Summer said Nov. 27.
Hallowell brought her car alongside the driver’s window of the stopped vehicle.
“I was kind of in in-coming traffic,” she said. “I rolled the window down and waved and Carson yelled from the back seat.
“Carson yelled, ‘man … man,'” his mother said. “I still didn’t get much attention from the guy. His head was down. I honked my horn and didn’t get much out of him, either.”
After more honking, and yelling from Carson, the man rolled his head up briefly and then dropped it down again,” she said.
Hallowell said she thought the man was not doing well, backed up to her earlier position and turned on her car’s emergency flashers.
“We called 9-1-1 and told them what was going on,” she said. “It was a million questions from Carson in the backseat while we were waiting.”
While they waited for emergency workers to arrive, the mother and son discussed the possible health issues that might be the cause of the stopped car.
Hallowell said she later learned the man, whose name is not known, was awakened by the noise they had made.
“The honking and yelling had woken him up enough for him to eat a KitKat bar,” she said.
When Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Matt Day arrived at the scene, Hallowell heard the man say he was in diabetic shock.
While they waited in their car Hallowell and her son talked about diabetes and some people’s medical need for a sweet in an emergency.
“He asked a million questions,” she said. She said Carson now understands that a stock of sweets can help certain people in an emergency.
“He did pretty well,” she said. “He didn’t get panicky. I got a little nervous for a few minutes.”
“We’re very proud of him,” Hallowell said.
Hallowell’s father is LCSO Det. Mark Bridgham and he said he was proud of his grandson, Carson, after learning about the incident in an email from his daughter.
“It was certainly something that needed attention,” Bridgham said. “He [the driver of the stopped car] was right in the middle of the road.”
Bridgham said the situation could have turned even more dangerous if a car had come over the hill in the opposite direction.
“He’s something else,” Bridgham said of Carson. “Very quick, extremely articulate when he’s not shy. Grandfathers will say that about kids.”
“While driving off finally, knowing the man was okay, he [Carson] says, ‘We make a good team, Momma. That man will be happy we stopped,'” Hallowell wrote in her email message. She said Carson had one final suggestion.
“Oh, oh,” the boy said, “we should always keep candy on us.”
