By Cristin Ross
cross@jacksonvilleprogress.com
With some quick thinking and team work, Jacksonville High School students Dillon and Dustin Lambright managed to avert a catastrophe and get their father medical help last week after he had a seizure while driving them to school.
The family was traveling along Jackson Street the morning of Thursday, Jan. 29, as Tony Lambright, took the pair of boys to school in his Chevy S-10 pick-up. The truck just made it over the overpass, traveling south, when its driver began having a seizure.
“I was crammed into the back seat,” 17-year-old Dustin said, remembering the moment he realized something was wrong with his father. “That doesn’t normally happen — it’s been probably five years since the last time (his dad had a seizure), so it took me two or three seconds to figure out what was going on.”
Dillon, 16, was riding shotgun.
“He just started looking up,” he said. “I thought maybe he was day sleeping, but then he started making weird noises.”
That’s when the teens sprang into action. Dillon grabbed the steering wheel, while his brother helped guide him through traffic.
“I realized he couldn’t reach the brake, because my dad was driving,” Dustin said. “So I started telling him to ‘pull over, pull over.’”
The daring duo saw an opening in traffic and managed to pull into the CVS Pharmacy parking lot, where Dillon got the truck into neutral and shut off the ignition.
The vehicle continued to coast through the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts parking lot and finally came to a full stop after crossing El Paso Street and climbing the embankment on the north side of the park at the intersection of El Paso and Jackson streets.
“We nearly hit a guy and a couple of cars, but we made it,” Dillon said. “We did run over a bush though.”
As soon as the truck came to a stop, Dillon jumped out and yelled for help as his brother dialed 911 on his cell phone.
Emergency personnel responded within minutes and got the boys’ father to the hospital.
“The policeman originally was going to write a ticket, but after I told him what happened, he didn’t,” Dillon said. “I thought that was cool.”
The youths are happy to report their father is doing fine now and credit him with their knowledge of what to do in that situation.
“He always told us to turn off the key and pull over if he ever had a seizure while he was driving,” Dustin said. “We’ve been told that since I was like 4.”
Tony Lambright said he was “amazed.”
“One minute I’m driving them to school; the next they (paramedics) are wheeling me into the hospital,” he said. “Later I heard what they (Dillon and Dustin) did. This was 8 in the morning, and I asked them, ‘and you didn’t hit any cars?’ You didn’t hit anything?’”
Mom, Sherry Stemm, said she thanks God for the miracle.
“It was certainly a miracle,” she said. “No one was hurt, nothing was damaged — how can it be anything else? I’m so proud of them (Dustin and Dillon). They both did really good. They kept people from getting hurt and helped their dad get the medical attention he needed.”
