When Zac Howells was a toddler, he enjoyed sitting on his mother’s knee in the front seat and pretending to drive their car.
But last Saturday the 12-year-old took control of mum Nicola Crump’s vehicle for real – steering it to safety at 60mph and saving both of their lives after she passed out at the wheel.
Ms Crump, 37, was driving to a Christmas market with her youngest child when she began to feel ill – and told him she was about to pass out.
She fainted before she could wheel the car to safety and switch it off – so the hero schoolboy calmly leaned across and steered it onto a grassy central reservation to slow it down against the barrier, before dialling 999.
Ms Crump said Zac only agreed to accompany her on the 110-mile journey from Ebbw Vale, South Wales, to Wellesbourne Airfield in Warwickshire, when her friend cancelled on her the day before.
She said: ‘We left the house at 5.30am and everything was fine. We didn’t have breakfast because we were planning on getting a McDonald’s on the way.’
But less than half way into the journey, as they approached Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, Ms Crump began to feel ‘really hot’.
The support worker added: ‘I wound my window down and managed to take my coat off. I could feel myself going, I was in buckets of sweat. I said to Zac: ‘I’m going, I don’t feel well.’
Zac Howells had only accompanied mother Nicola Crump on the trip after her friend dropped out at the last minute
Ms Crump said Zac was ‘so calm’ during the alarming incident
At the time, Ms Crump was driving in the left lane of the A40 dual carriageway and managed to pull off to the side of the road and put her hazard lights on.
But she said: ‘There was no proper hard shoulder, just a small verge – so more than half of my car remained in the live lane.
‘The last thing I remember is a lorry going past. Then I fainted before I had managed to put the car into park mode.’
As she lost consciousness, her foot pressed on the accelerator and the MG HS accelerated to around 60mph (97 km/h) along the dual carriageway.
‘There was nothing to stop it from accelerating’, Ms Crump, who also has a daughter, Michaela, 18, added. ‘The next thing I could remember is coming around and seeing we were on the central reservation.
‘We had been on the left of the road and now we were on the right-hand-side of the road by the barrier’.
‘I was asking Zac: ‘Have we crashed?
Zac said we had – he was saying: ‘you’re alright.’ Then I could see the blue flashing lights coming towards us.
‘The central reservation was about the width of the car so cars weren’t having to swerve around us.
Zac is my hero, he saved both our lives. But he’s very modest about it and doesn’t know what all the fuss is about.’
Ms Crump was unconscious for around seven or eight minutes as Zac manoeuvred the car into the central reservation to slow it down on the bumpy grass before turning it off.
He then dialled 999 and gave the emergency services their location on the A40 road.
Ms Crump added: ‘He seemed to be so calm.
‘He turned the engine off because there’s a stop-start button on my car and when the police needed the satnav he turned it back on to give them the road. It was such quick thinking, it’s incredible.’
The crash happened at 6.10am as the pair travelled north to Wellesbourne in Warwickshire
Ms Crump said her ‘hero’ Zac ‘doesn’t know what all the fuss is about’
The damage caused to Ms Crump’s MG HS Trophy in a picture she posted on Facebook following the drama
The mother-of-two was found to be suffering from low blood pressure and has been referred to a cardiologist for further tests before she gets back behind the wheel.
Ms Crump said the police officers were amazed at how calm Zac was after listening to the 999 call. He has been invited to West Mercia Police’s headquarters outside Worcester, where staff plan to present him with a certificate for bravery.
‘I was really scared but I knew I had to do something,’ he said.
‘When I was on the phone to 999, I saw her belly was moving so I knew she was breathing.’
Neither Nicola nor Zac was injured in the incident and, while the car was damaged, it was not written off.
‘He literally saved our lives and who knows who else’s lives,’ Nicola said.
‘Thank God he thought so quickly and was so brave because we both could’ve died. You don’t prepare for anything like that!
‘It was just incredible – his quick thinking, the way he stayed so calm, the way he spoke to the police, the way he reassured me. He wasn’t panicking, he was just unbelievable.’