6-year-old helps rescue family from car crash in Nova Scotia
Soaking wet and suspended upside down by her seatbelt, Candice Hicks knew she was in trouble.
Her minivan with her three kids aboard had gone off the road, flipped and landed in a river. Hicks had no idea how she was going to save her kids, or that the help she desperately needed would come from her six-year-old.
On Nov. 1 Hicks had been driving from Amherst to Oxford, N.S., about a 30 minute drive away, to pick up her father. She was only a few kilometres away from her destination when her minivan hit a rut in the road that caused her to lose control of the vehicle.
The minivan left the road, flew over an embankment and flipped.
"We hit the guardrail, it made a really loud noise — I think we all still all have that noise in our head — and we flew off into the river," said Hicks. "I just knew we were going into water, so yeah it was really scary."
The van finally came to a stop upside down in the river. Hicks's six-year-old daughter Sophia, her four-year-old son Ethan and two-year-old daughter Elise were all travelling with her.
Covered in glass and blood, the family hung upside down. After a few moments, Hicks managed to struggle free from her seatbelt despite a sharp pain in her arm. She crawled out her window and managed to get out of the van.
A few minutes later her oldest Sophia managed to squirm out as well.
But the other two children were still strapped inside and Ethan wasn't making any noise.
"I could see he was just hanging there unconscious. So I tried to get Elise out because she was closest to me," said Hicks.
She could undo the bottom buckle of the two-year-old's car seat, but couldn't get the chest strap off.
"My wrist just kept flopping and I didn't realize it was broken until I actually looked at it, but I couldn't get it undone so I asked Sophia to get her out and she was able to."
Four-year-old Ethan was still stuck though, and because the embankment leading into the river was so steep no one driving by could see the overturned van.
That left Hicks with a difficult choice.
"I didn't know what to do because I didn't want to leave her standing there in the water and my son unconscious down by the river. So I asked Sophia to climb up and wave down a car."
The embankment was so steep that Sophia had to get onto her mother's back to start climbing out.
The climb wasn't easy for the six-year-old.
"It was really hard because there was so much bushes," said Sophia. "I was a little scared but not that much scared. I knew I could do, I could do something safely and save my family."
She managed to make it to the top and flagged down a passing truck. In the meantime Anthony Terry, who lived nearby, had seen the crash and phoned 911. He then rushed down to help the family.
"I didn't think anybody was going to make it out of there," said Terry. "They were lucky, really lucky."
He said the family narrowly missed a cement outcropping on the river's edge and deep hole in the river that could have swallowed their van.
Terry used a knife to cut Ethan free and soon the entire family was in an ambulance on their way to the hospital. Ethan regained consciousness in the ambulance. Besides some cuts and bruises the children were all fine.
Hicks's injuries were another story. Her arm had been shattered and she needed to have metal plates surgically inserted.
RCMP were some of the first emergency crews on the scene and were impressed by how brave Sophia was, so they decided to give her an Act of Heroism Award.
Sophia was given the award in a small ceremony at the RCMP detachment in Amherst on Wednesday. Staff Sgt. Craig Learning presented the award.
"I think it's important to recognize people when they contribute and Sophia is the real hero today but as you see from our meeting there a few minutes ago, a lot of people came into play, not just first responders but just the general public. So a big thanks to them. It kind of keeps that faith in humanity," said Learning.
Sophia was excited to get the award, but was a little disappointed when she learned she might just get a piece of paper recognizing her good work.
"I thought because I was so brave, I thought I would get something a little better," said Sophia.
It turned out Sophia had nothing to worry about. Along with her piece of paper, RCMP and EHS gave Sophia and her siblings some toys.
The now seven-year-old Sophia also had some parting words of wisdom for motorists:
"If you see anyone else who has a car accident just make sure you have a seven-year-old or six-year-old to help," she said.
