PELZER, SC — Until South Carolina elementary teacher Keller Sutherland saw him dodging cars as he frantically pedaled down a busy highway, almost everything had gone wrong in 7-year-old Cameron Simoncic’s heroic attempts to get medical help for his father, who was unconscious on the kitchen floor.
The second-grader came home from school Wednesday to find his father in a diabetic shock. Cameron tried to call 911 on his father’s cellphone, but it was locked and he didn’t have the access code. He ran to a neighbor’s house, but no one was home.
There was nothing for Cameron to do but jump on his bicycle and ride to his grandmother’s house.
That’s when Sutherland saw him. She didn’t recognize him as a student in last year’s first-grade class at Ellen Woodside Elementary School in Pelzer. She just knew a child that young shouldn’t be riding his bicycle on the highway.
“I just told my husband, I said, ‘There’s a small child on his bicycle riding down the road. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I feel like I need to just turn around and see what’s going on,'” Sutherland told news station WSPA.
As they got closer, she recognized Cameron from her class last year. He explained what had happened, and Sutherland kept the boy calm while a couple of other passersby called 911.
Paramedics revived Cameron’s father, and everything ended well.
Sutherland, who told WSPA she has sometimes questioned her choice to become a teacher, said that after the incident, “there’s no doubt that God placed me where he did when he needed me.”
Read the full story on WSPA.
Photo: Renee Schiavone/Patch