One minute, Jody Ryan Kemp was driving her sons home from a church, youth-group meeting. The next, she and her boys were coming to the aid of a woman and her toddler in an overturned car on Compton Road.
"I heard them screaming," she said. "They were banging on the windows, and the baby was crying."
The accident happened last Tuesday, Feb. 3, just before 9 p.m. "The road was treacherous — covered with black ice," said Kemp, of Hampton Chase. "The day's rain had frozen on the road as the temperature dropped."
She'd just picked up sons Jack Ryan, 14, a freshman at Fairfax High, and Chris Ryan, 12, a sixth-grader at Willow Springs Elementary, from Community Bible Church and was headed home. She'd just turned from Bay Valley Lane, in the Marleigh Heights community, onto Compton.
"Compton Road had been so slippery when I went to pick them up that I decided to take Route 28 home and was on my way there," explained Kemp. "It was icy, and a woman in a small, compact car came toward me, from the opposite direction."
"She was coming a little fast, so I beeped [to warn her] because I knew what she was headed into, but she was already skidding," said Kemp. She then slowly pulled over to the right to avoid impact and stopped her vehicle.
Still slipping on the ice, the oncoming car went up the embankment on its side of the road. Then, said Kemp, "As she started to come toward me, I think the embankment gave her car impetus — like a skateboard — and her car completely flipped over onto its roof."
IT LANDED by Kemp's front tire, on the driver's side — stopping just three inches from her vehicle. "It happened so quickly," she said. "The woman later said she saw me and was trying to avoid hitting me."
She said the woman — who lives in the local area, but whose identity was never learned — was in her late 20s or early 30s and her daughter was about 2. After their car overturned, she said, "They were both buckled in, but nothing separated their heads from the roof of their car." Luckily, though, Jody, Chris and Jack immediately sprang into action.
"Jack threw me the cell phone and went to get the flashlight from our emergency kit in the back of the car," said Kemp. "And Chris was already running toward the car in front of us."
"I was wondering if everyone was OK," he said. "I heard a child screaming and wondered if she was hurt, or not."
Kemp said the driver's side faced her car — "which was good because our headlights shined in on them. They were the only lights on the road; her headlights were facing the trees and the embankment."
She and her sons assured the woman they'd stay with her and told her they'd called 911. And the boys told her not to worry. "She was saying, 'Help, please help me,'" said Kemp. "She didn't know if her baby had been injured." Added Jack: "She was shaken up — she was worrying about the kid."
CHRIS WAS the first one to reach the car, and he pried open the driver's side back door where the baby was hanging upside-down in her carseat. "I pulled the carseat out," he said. Then, said Jack, "The mom crawled through the back seat and Chris and I helped pull her out of the car."
After that, said Chris, "The mom picked up the baby and asked if anyone had a cell phone to call her husband and the police. And the whole time, she was saying, 'Thank you.'"
Miraculously, no one was injured and no other vehicles entered the scene while the impromptu drama was playing out. Once the woman was out of her car and holding her child in her arms, they heard sirens from the rescue vehicles on Route 28 heading toward them.
"And then, amazingly, cars started coming down Compton from Route 28," said Kemp. "Three cars behind the flipped car, a couple jumped out, saying, 'We're doctors.' And a woman in plain clothes jumped out of her car and said, 'I'm a police officer; has anyone called 911?' I thought, 'Wow, God does provide.'"
Actually, she said, it was against her better judgment to even go out, that night, but she did because it was for the youth group. "I prayed going there, and I prayed on the way back," she said. "I really think God wanted us to be there for the woman. I think there was somebody watching out for her. It's amazing how lives can cross for a brief second, but in such an important way."
Val Chappell, senior pastor of Community Bible Church, warmly praised the two boys for "their example of compassion and bravery in a time of crisis when they could have let fear or their youth inhibit their response to help."
KEMP'S ALSO glad that other children will be able to read about young people "doing the right thing" and pitching in to help others. "I think my sons are growing into good, young men of character," she said. "I just had a birthday, and I told them, 'A mother can't get a better gift than that.'"
Willow Springs Principal Sandra Culmer called it "amazing that Christopher, a sixth-grade student, was able to accomplish what he did." Added his teacher, Connie Gunn: "Chris is brave, honest, caring and ready to do the heroic thing, every day." Similarly, Fairfax High Principal Linda Thomson said Jack's an honor student, freshman football team quarterback and "a role model for his peers."
Still, as a teen-ager, Jack believes "it's no big deal; it's something anyone would do." But his stepdad, Bruce Kemp, disagrees. "So many people would just go on and not get involved," he said. "I'm very proud of them — that they'd be willing to step out and help somebody in need." It is a big deal; for these age guys, I think it's pretty heroic."