A girl saved her mother and baby brother's lives after a car crash, leading many to refer to her as a hero.
On June 8, Lexi Shymanski , 5, with her mother, Angela Shymanski, and her brother, 2-month-old Peter, were on their way back home in Canada after a vacation from Calgary to Prince George, according to The Spreadit.
Her mother, feeling tired from the trip, began to doze off, resulting in her driving their SUV straight into a tree, before it plummeted 40 feet off an embankment.
While Lexi only had minor injuries, she soon found her mother unconscious, suffering from a broken back and internal injuries, and her brother trapped in the wreckage, according to Canada Journal.
Lexi, realizing the crash couldn't be seen from the roadside in Alberta, climbed out of the car and flagged down drivers for help.
A passing motorist noticed the girl and stopped to help her family. The man was able to get Lexi's brother out of the wreckage, but couldn't get to her mother. The man returned to the road to call for additional help and, by "some miracle," came across a man who happened to be an off-duty paramedic who realized that Lexi's mother shouldn't be moved.
Paramedics, who soon arrived on the scene, used ropes to reach the SUV, and then took the family to a hospital in Jasper. They were later airlifted to Edmonton where a neurologist realized Peter was suffering from severe brain bleeding. He was rushed to surgery, and made a full recovery.
Angela, who had a bone fragment stuck inside her spinal column, is still in pain and uses a wheelchair. However, she is expected to make a full recovery.
Many believe that without her actions, Lexi's mother and brother could have been paralyzed for life or died, according to the Examiner.
"It's crazy. I can only remember one or two times where she got out of her five-point harness previously. She somehow got out, adrenaline or whatever, and barefoot-hiked up the embankment," Angela recalled about the incident. "The guy who came to see us in the hospital, he said the medics and the firemen needed ropes to get up and down that embankment, and she did it barefoot."
"It was only because she came up and flagged people down that anybody would have stopped," she concluded.
