FAYETTEVILLE, Ohio (WKRC) — A Highland County teenager is being hailed as a hero for helping save her mom and two siblings after a head-on crash.
13-year-old Kallee Childers said that they were headed to see her Dad on June 13 to spend time with him for Father’s Day.
“I remember looking down at my phone and the car started swerving and I heard mom say, ‘What is this lady doing?'” said Childers.
She said that it was around 4 p.m. when they were on Route 50 near Fayetteville, heading to Owensville, where her dad was.
“I look up and then it’s like, the next we know, we [were] hit,” said Childers.
Childers said that she remembers the air being knocked out of her after the crash.
“Mom was like, ‘Kallee, you have to get out of the car before the car blows up.’ That motivated me to get out of the car,” said Childers.
That’s when Childers jumped into action. First, she helped her mom out of the car.
“My two siblings in the back seat weren’t able to get out of the car, so, my sister did unbuckle herself and then I pulled her out and then my brother couldn’t unbuckle himself, so I unbuckled him and got him out too,” said Childers. “After I laid him down in the grass, I walked over to the other lady’s car and I pulled her out too.”
Childers walked away with a sprained ankle, but the same couldn’t be said for her family. Her mother, Amanda Johnson, was taken to UC Medical Center. Bill Johnson is Amanda’s brother and described the injuries to her right leg.
“She shattered her ankle in multiple places. They were unable to save about half of her kneecap,” Bill Johnson said. “I was told every bone in her leg has been broken.”
He also touched on the slew of injuries to 12-year-old Aubree and 10-year-old Brantlee.
“For Brantlee, his hip was fractured in two places, he broke four of his fingers,” Bill Johnson said. “With Aubree, her bowels were severed, they removed those parts of her intestine.”
Both were taken to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Brantlee has since been released. For now, Childers is staying with her uncle, Bill Johnson, in Louisville and reflecting on what happened.
“I am just so proud of her. I know we all are,” Bill Johnson said.
Local 12 spoke briefly with Childers mom, Amanda Johnson, on Thursday.
She said that she and her children’s injuries are serious and some of them will impact them for the rest of their lives. While this experience will stay with them forever, she said that it could have been worse.
Amanda Johnson pointed to the importance of seatbelts, saying they saved her children’s lives.
