‘My little hero’: Illinois boy, 8, runs 2 miles to find help after car falls into ravine

GALESBURG, Ill. — An 8-year-old Illinois boy is being called a hero after he ran two miles to find help after his family’s car skidded on an icy road and landed in a ravine.

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Christopher Taylor Jr. was traveling with his family when their vehicle hit black ice near Altona, a rural area located northeast of Galesburg, KWQC reported.

“My mom got out and I pushed them out of the car and I told them just to leave me behind to go get help and this young man ran two miles with his sister to get help,” Naomi Evans, one of Taylor’s sisters, told the television station.

The family’s car landed four feet from a tree, and the snow was about six feet deep, KWQC reported. The temperature was about minus-15 degrees and the truck had no heat.

“I knew if we stayed in the truck we were going to freeze to death so I said just run Christopher, just run as fast as you can,” Amanda Matuszyk-Taylor, Christopher’s mother, told the television station. “He kept turning around and saying, ‘Mommy, are you OK?’ and I said, ‘Just run, we’re fine.’ We weren’t fine, our clothes were soaking wet and freezing but he kept going.”

The boy was wearing a jacket and wrapped himself in a blanket as he ran toward a farmhouse, where the residents called 911.

“I said, ‘Can you help us because my family is down the hill and they are hurt and they got in a car accident,’” Taylor told KWQC.

The family at the farmhouse helped Taylor’s family to the house and gave them blankets, socks and hot cocoa to warm up, the television station reported. Officials were able to pull the car out of the ravine.

A few of the family members suffered frostbite, but there were no other serious injuries.

“For an 8-year-old who doesn’t know where he is or anything and for him to take off running ... words can’t describe how I feel,” says Matuszyk-Taylor told KWQC. “He will always be my little hero.”

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