A 3-year-old Arkansas boy survived 2 days with his infant brother after their mother died in a car accident Monday morning. The children’s mother, Lisa Holliman, died after she lost control of her car and it crashed into a ravine.
The toddler managed to free himself from the wreckage and climb up an embankment before walking down a roadway where he was spotted by a passing motorist 2 days after the accident.
The boy, identified by his grandfather as Kylen, lead rescuers back to the wreckage where his 1-year-old brother was found, awake and alert, in his car seat.
The Ouachita County Sheriff’s Office shared the boy’s photo on their Facebook page, where someone recognized the child.
Several people contacted the sheriff’s office to say they had not heard from Holliman in days. Kylen led police back to the wreckage where they rescued the infant. The body of Holliman, 25, was found nearby. She was ejected from the car when it rolled.
“I don’t understand how a little bitty boy came out of that seat belt, climbed out (of) that car, got out of that ditch, and walked up there and looked for help, knowing that his mother wasn’t responding to whatever he was doing at that time,” Holliman’s father James Holliman told local NBC affiliate KARK.
“And I know his brother was crying at that time. He’s a hero. He got up, and if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have known where none of them was at.”
James told KARK that he learned when he got to the hospital that his daughter had been about four weeks pregnant with her third child.
“My family is taking it real hard right now,” he said. “But we’re happy that the grandkids are OK. We’re happy that he was wise enough to know that something was wrong, to get up and go somewhere where somebody could see him to get help for his family.”
James said he hoped to gain custody of his grandkids.
