Quick-Thinking Little Boy Asks Amazon Driver For Help When His Mom Collapses — 'I'm So Proud Of Him, The Driver Didn't Hesitate'
They're both being praised as heroes.
PIKSEL | Canva Pro It's the type of situation no parent ever wants to encounter — a moment when their health fails them while they're all alone with their kids and unable to call for help.
Thankfully, for one Irish mother, her six-year-old son's good instincts and a man who was in the right place at the right time happened to overlap just when she needed help the most, and it made all the difference.
A little boy and an Amazon driver are being called 'heroes' for helping the boy's mom during a medical crisis.
Elizabeth Crooks of Newtownards, Northern Ireland, hadn't been feeling well on July 20, which happened to also be her birthday.
She deals with a chronic neurological disorder, and her doctors think she may also suffer from Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or POTS.
The former condition can cause seizures, while the latter can cause fainting, especially when going from lying down to standing up, and Crooks was having a particularly difficult day dealing with her illness. "My partner was at work," Crooks told Belfast Live. "I woke up and felt generally unwell."
She'd been feeling dizzy, and while lying down usually helps, this particular day, nothing she tried worked. "I started to get really, really dizzy, and I thought, 'I'm going to pass out here,'" she said.
She called 999, the U.K.'s emergency number, and told her children to stay nearby where she could see them. That's the last thing she clearly recalled before she passed out. "I remember feeling lightheaded and then... I do not remember," she said.
Thankfully an Amazon driver came to the door, and her quick-thinking 6-year-old knew just what to do.
As soon as Crooks passed out, a stroke of luck came to their home — an Amazon delivery driver happened to ring the bell, and her 6-year-old son Aidan knew exactly what to do. Footage from the Crooks' Ring doorbell showing the scene has gone wildly viral.
In the video, the Amazon driver handed over the package to Aidan like usual, but then the interaction took an abrupt turn. "Excuse me, could you help my mum?" Aidan said to the man. "She fainted. Can you help her?"
Without hesitation, the driver opened the gate and ran into the Crooks' house. Moments later, he was seen speaking with emergency services and waiting while they arrived to take Crooks to the hospital.
"When I came round," Crooks said, "all I could see was [the driver's] high-visibility vest, so I automatically thought it was the paramedics, to be honest." She then realized Aiden had wrapped her up in a blanket and got a bucket to put beside her. "I had said, 'Mummy doesn't feel well,' so he must have thought that meant I was going to [throw up]," she said.
Crooks is immensely proud of how her little boy handled the situation and grateful the Amazon driver didn't hesitate to help.
"I saw the video the next morning," Crooks said. "It was so heartwarming to see how calm my son was, how he even said 'excuse me,' but most importantly, the Amazon driver didn't hesitate — he did just come and help."
She went on to say that she's "so proud" of little Aidan for being able to remain so calm in the situation and know just what to do — though she said once the initial danger was over, he was overcome with emotion. "He did break down crying in the ambulance; God bless him," she said.
As for the driver, his sister-in-law saw the video of the incident on social media and alerted him, and he and Crooks have been in contact. His name is Bryan, and he's quite a shy sort — he's not on social media.
But the three were eventually reunited on ITV's "This Morning," where Bryan said he's been rather surprised by how viral he and Aidan have gone, including being recognized around Newtownards when he's come back to make more deliveries.
But it's really not so shocking after all — as Crooks put it to him, "What do you expect?" In such difficult times and in a world where we all seem to be drifting ever farther apart, this kind of care and no-hesitation kindness from a stranger is the sort of thing that renews your hope in humanity.
To thank him, Ms. Crooks has set up a GoFundMe fundraiser that will help her install a panic button in her home should another incident like this happen again and reward Bryan with a gift for helping her and Aidan — one that is very well deserved indeed.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.