He won't have his driver's license for three more years, but a teen in Weld County took control of the wheel to steer his family to safety this weekend.
Anthony Castner was riding in the front passenger seat of his mother’s SUV Sunday morning as the family drove to church in Greeley. As they were driving along 35th Avenue just north of U.S. Hwy 34, Castner noticed his mother didn’t look right.
“I was looking out the window and then I noticed that my mom seemed a bit off, and then she started shaking,” the 13-year-old Castner remembers.
His mother, Sara Gale, was having a seizure. Castner realized he had to act quickly. His 6-year-old little sister and her friend were in the backseat.
“There wasn’t much traffic around, but there was enough traffic where I had to go off to the side,” he said.
Castner grabbed the steering wheel and turned it right, to steer the vehicle off the road and into the grass nearby.
“I didn’t want to hurt [anybody] so I went to the grass field, because nobody’s going to be out in the grass field,” he said.
The SUV eventually slowed to a stop, after running into a fence. He and the younger girls climbed out of the car and called 911, he said. First responders said they arrived on scene with the kids standing outside the vehicle, uninjured.
“I woke up in the hospital, and I was told what happened,” Sara said.
She says she manages her epilepsy with medication, and hasn’t had a seizure in four years. Sara said she has had a doctor’s clearance to drive for the past several years, and Greeley police confirmed she was not driving illegally on Sunday.
Sara said she is grateful for how her kids responded.
“I have amazing children, and I’m very fortunate to be blessed with such amazing children,” she said. “We’re all OK and that’s what matters.”
Anthony knows his quick thinking may have saved lives.
“I can’t stop thinking of that moment, but I know everybody's going to be ok now, that we're done with all that,” he said. “And that's just why I'm happy right now."
