You don’t have to be a grown up to be a hero. In fact, 8-year-old Kailey George is responsible for saving her mother’s life.
Kailey’s mom, 35-year-old Christie Cunningham, might not be here today if it wasn’t her for daughter’s heroic act.
In started one day when Christie got out of work early to pick her daughter up from Vision Charter School. She started to have some back pain when she got home.
Christie became paralyzed when she decided to lay on the floor and use a foam roller to ease her back pain.
She started to talk funny and the side of her mouth started to droop.
Kailey went to get her mom some water but Christie couldn’t lift her arm to drink it. Kailey thought her mom was playing tricks on her.
Kailey wanted to call 911 but her mother told her not to. She instead called her father.
Her father then called 911 after hearing his wife talk.
Kailey’s instinct to get her mother help regardless of what her mom said is exactly what saved her mother’s life.
Christie has suffered from a stroke. She had no clue that she had a hole in her heart.
The mother-of-four was healthy, didn’t smoke, and didn’t have high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
According to Idaho State Journal, about 20 percent of the population has this hole in their heart but it only becomes dangerous when a blood clot travels through the hole and to the heart or brain.
That’s what happened to Christie.
“It’s scary because a lot of people don’t know (they have a hole in their heart) and could be more at risk,” she told Idaho State Journal.
Cunningham had to have surgery to fill the hold in her heart. She will have to take baby aspirin for the duration of her life and take blood thinners.
“I’m just glad she’s still alive,” Kailey told reporters.
Kailey was given the Life Saving Award for her quick thinking in a ceremony in front of classmates, paramedics, and police.
“This really makes you take nothing for granted,” Christie said. “I don’t want to miss out on anything.”
Not everyone ends up as lucky as Christie to catch such a dangerous condition in time.
Kailey’s parents and community couldn’t have been more proud of her for saving her mother’s life.
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