A 9-year-old hero from Oklahoma reportedly managed to save his parents by running more than a mile in the dark to get help after the family pickup truck was swept away by a tornado while they were driving towards a refuge.
“The only way he found his way was with lightning lighting the way. He ran as fast as he could, as hard as he could. He probably walked 1 mile in 10 minutes. “It’s pretty impressive for a little kid,” said young Branson’s uncle, Johnny Baker, in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday.
In the middle of Saturday night, Branson’s parents, Wayne and Lindy Baker, were trying to get to Dickson, Oklahoma to find shelter with their boy after numerous tornadoes ravaged the state, when their pickup vehicle was reportedly swept away by one of them.
Screenshot taken from the GoFundMe site
The vehicle was then thrown into the trees, leaving both parents seriously injured and unable to move, but the boy miraculously unhurt.
Without wasting a second, the young hero would have rushed into the darkness, through the debris, to try to retrace his path to the house of a family friend, which he would then have brought back to the two injured .
“The last thing Branson said to them was, ‘Mommy, daddy, please don’t die, I’m coming back,'” the boy’s uncle continued to CBS News.
When they were found, Wayne and Lindy Baker both had broken backs, necks and several vertebrae, in addition to an arm for the father of the family, and a punctured lung for his partner.
Screenshot taken from the GoFundMe site
Fortunately, thanks to the rapid medical response, both parents should be able to make a full recovery, according to Wayne Baker’s brother.
“He had to become his parents’ Superman and do what he had to do. “That’s exactly what he said: ‘I have to save my parents,'” Johnny Baker told CBS News.
A GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign, which had reached more than AU$25,000 as of Thursday, was set up to help the family recover from the event despite the self-employed status of both parents, while the baseball team of boy reportedly held a fundraising event Monday evening in support of the family.
