Five-year-old girl saves the day when mom is knocked unconscious due to car crash

When her mom fell asleep at the wheel, 5-year-old Lexi jumped into action.

On the way back home from a vacation in Calgary, Angela Shymanski had a lullaby CD playing in hopes of relaxing her two children, reports the Prince George Citizen.

Unfortunately for her, the CD worked a little better than planned.

Shymanski felt herself become victim to the soft music that had already captured her five-year-old daughter, Lexi, and her 10-week-old son, Peter. So she decided that once she gets to Jasper, Alta., they’d take a break before they got home to Prince George.

But the restful pull of sleep was too strong, causing Shymanski to nod off behind the wheel.

As a result, her SUV swerved down a 12-metre embankment only to come to a crashing halt when it hit a tree – knocking Shymanski unconscious.

The sudden thud caused her 10-week-old to burst into tears, and luckily for everyone, Lexi had also woken up. But her mom didn’t – or couldn’t – wake up. So Lexi jumped into action.

“She woke up and got out of her five-point harness, which she had only done once before, and she just climbed up the embankment to the highway and flagged somebody down,” Shymanski told CBC News.

The first to offer a helping hand were a mom and dad with a little boy, Lexi told the Prince George Citizen.

The next was a paramedic who knew better than to shake someone out of unconsciousness.

“He stayed with me until I regained consciousness and I could see Lexi lying down next to the highway and that someone else had the baby,” Shymanski said.

After the paramedic informed her of her daughter’s efforts, Shymanski “couldn’t believe what she had done,” reports CBC News.

“He said, ‘Your little girl, she hiked up this embankment and flagged us down,” she said.

The family was then flown to a hospital in Edmonton, where they were treated for their injuries.

Shymanski suffered small fractures to her neck and upper back, Peter had some bleeding in his brain but will not endure permanent damages, and Lexi only suffered a scratch.

“I still can’t believe what she was able to do.”