Boy, 7, Saves Mom After Car Wreck

ByABC News via logo
December 17, 2002, 9:48 PM

G R E E L E Y, Colo., Dec. 18 -- Titus Adams, just 7 years old, ran a quarter of a mile in his socks in freezing temperatures to a nearby farm after surviving a car accident to summon help for his mother, who was hurt.

His mom, Tammy Hill, 28, had been thrown from their pickup on a remote roadside north of Greeley, Colo., on Nov. 28, Thanksgiving night. She was lying unconscious, near death in a dormant alfalfa field in 23-degree weather.

Authorities credited the second-grader with saving his mother's life.

Titus had not seen his mom, who was thrown about 10 feet from the truck. After she was thrown from the vehicle, he made sure his sisters were OK, and then ran along the roadfor about half a mile, with no coat, in 23-degree weather.

When he finally happened upon a dairy farm, the Spanish-speaking dairy worker he found only understood the boy's panicked words, "My mom, my mom."

The accident came on the way home from a Thanksgiving dinner at Hill's parents' house. Before the trip. the mother of three had changed her children into pajamas and taken off their shoes so she could put them to bed at the end of their ride home. Hill then put Titus, 7, his sister, Tierra, 1 and his other sister, Tiffany, 4 in their truck.

Hill was just two miles from home when she reached for her ringing cell phone. It was the children's dad, with whom she had split. After Titus spoke to him, Hill took off her seatbelt and stretched back to take the phone back. She ended up losing control of the pickup.

State Patrol officers quickly arrived. Titus' mother was taken to North Colarado Medical Center with a broken back, broken neck and 10 broken ribs.

"I don't remember the accident," Hill told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "When I came to they told me what Titus did and I couldn't believe it," she said.

Paramedics said she may not have lived had Titus waited for a passer-by.

Titus told Good Morning America that he hadn't realized he was his family's only hope at the time. When asked if he was scared, he said "no, maybe a little scared.'