6-year-old stayed calm, saved her mom's life
Darah Hansen, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, February 21, 2007
As her mother lay on the floor of the family living room -- moaning and barely conscious, her feet and legs awkwardly stretched under the couch, spittle coming from her mouth -- six-year-old Taylor Trudgeon of Chemainus knew there was only one thing to do: Pick up the phone and dial 911.
She was scared, the little girl said in an interview Tuesday, a little over two months after the frightening incident that thrust her into a position of responsibility well beyond her years.
"But I was very calm," she added. "I knew that if I stayed calm, I won't think anything bad was going to happen."
It was early on Dec. 14 when things at the Trudgeon household went a little sideways.
Four months pregnant with her third child, Christine Trudgeon, 28, was up, as usual, preparing lunch for Taylor and two-year-old Charlee, while husband Ryan, 30, headed out to work.
Christine, an epileptic since she was 21 years old, doesn't remember much of what happened next.
"I was getting lunch ready and the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital," she said.
Taylor filled in the blanks.
"I heard this moaning sound coming from my mom and then she fell," she said.
Taylor didn't waste any time.
It wasn't the first time she'd seen her mother -- whose pregnancy had forced her to temporarily suspend medication that controls her seizures -- collapse under similar circumstances.
She knew the drill.
Taylor raced to the phone and dialed emergency, requesting an ambulance to her home -- immediately.
The dispatcher, a mother of three children herself, slipped into "mommy-mode" when she heard the child's voice on the line. But Taylor was surprisingly rational, reciting her address and providing frequent updates on her mother's condition.
As she waited for paramedics to arrive, Taylor turned her attention to her sister, flicking on the television and drawing the two-year-old's gaze away from her mother's helpless form on the floor.
Then Taylor ran outside to hail emergency crews up to the door, taking care to lock the big family labrador in the shoe room before a crew of strangers entered the home, carrying all kinds of bags and equipment.
Ben Maartman, superintendent for the central Vancouver Island district for the B.C. Ambulance Service, said Taylor's reaction throughout the ordeal was remarkable, proving you're never too young to learn the basics of caring for another person, and to understand the 911 system.
"She was multi-tasking very well," Maartman said of Taylor. "For her to keep that [adrenaline rush] all in check and not lose it, to keep her emotions under control was beyond her age," he said.
On Tuesday, the Grade 1 student at Chemainus elementary was honoured with the B.C. Ambulance Service Good Samaritan award in recognition of her courage under extreme pressure. The award is handed out to only about 12 to 15 people -- almost exclusively adults -- throughout the province annually.
To give it to a six-year-old is almost unheard of, Maartman said.
Taylor, though, has always been a little ahead of her years.
"She's so composed, it's in her nature," Christine Trudgeon said. "At preschool, they used to say she was four going on 30."
dahansen@png.canwest.com
