Hero son, 11, saves
car crash father
news extracted from TimesOnline
An 11-year-old boy who survived a car crash was being hailed as a hero last
night after he gave his injured father mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and ran
3km (2 miles) in pitch darkness to raise the alarm.
Lachlan Nally, who is to receive a bravery award, described the frightening
ordeal of leaving his father, 36, at the crash scene in an isolated area of
South Australia just after midnight.
The schoolboy, known to his friends as Lochie, suffered seatbelt burns to
his neck, two lumps on his head and a graze to his lower back when the car
his father was driving rolled several times and came to rest in a paddock in
between two towns about 180km north of Adelaide.
When Lachlan checked on his father, Matthew, he could feel that his chest
was not moving and performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until he began
breathing again. He climbed out of a window and ran barefoot through the
wilderness to an old tin-roofed pub in the town of Koolunga where they had
been earlier in the evening. His knocking awoke the owners, who contacted
the police.
“I was shocked and Dad wasn’t talking so I went back to the pub because they
were the only people I knew in Koolunga,” Lachlan said. “I was scared and it
was pitch-black and I couldn’t see anything. I done mouth to mouth and then
he started breathing again and then I went and got help.”
He explained that he had learnt the first aid skills that saved his father’s
life at school. “We got taught at school by an ambulance person,” he said.
His mother, Kim March, described her son as fearless and as someone who
would help anyone out. She said that she was alerted to the drama after
being awoken at 3am to find her son at her door with police.
“He jumped out the window and he ran for help and that just blew me away,”
she said. “For 3 kilometers and it’s pitch dark by yourself . . . for a
little boy it’s, like, amazing, so I told him he’s saved his Dad’s life.”
Lachlan’s bravery has made him something of a local idol in Koolunga and put
the tiny town on the map. Its previous claim to fame is that it is said to
be home to a bunyip – a mythical creature from Australian folklore that is
often described as a lake monster.
Inspector Graham Goodwin, the local police chief, said that Lachlan would
receive a bravery award. “We think it’s one of the more heroic acts we’ve
seen here and the police will certainly be recognising that in some form.”
Lachlan’s father was taken by helicopter to the Royal Adelaide Hospital,
where he was in a critical condition. Police are investigating the
circumstances of the accident.
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