When Yanire Mendes was driving with a friend in Lakeville, Massachusetts, she witnessed a horrifying scene.
It was on Oct. 11 when she spotted a car veer off the road and crash into a line of trees along the side of the highway.
Nobody had stopped so Mendes didn’t hesitate to pull over and check on the occupants.
The driver had been ejected from the car and sustained significant injuries, but Mendes’ motherly instinct kicked in when she heard a child crying.
She ran to the vehicle and found a 4-year-old girl in the crumpled car.
Thankfully, she was properly strapped into her car seat and seemed physically fine, but emotionally she was very upset.
Mendes got the girl out of the car and looked after her until first responders arrived and cared for the girl’s mother.
“She was shaking pretty violently,” Mendes said, according to WCVB-TV. “I just put a blanket around her, just held her and consoled her. I just acknowledged what she had already seen, that mom had some injuries and that mom was bleeding.
“Mom had some boo-boos, but there are some great men that are on their way,” she said she told the girl.
Firefighters wanted to thank Mendes for her calm and nurturing response to a very tough situation.
They said Mendes “was able to calm the upset child and even had her smiling and laughing,” as per CBS Boston.
“She had a mother’s presence about her,” Chief Michael O’Brien said. “I asked her how many children she had without knowing and she said three. She was a mom at that moment, standing in for the actual mom, which is what that baby needed at the time.”
The child and her mother were taken to a Providence hospital.
When firefighters arrived at the scene, the little girl gave them a bracelet she had made as a thank you. When Mendes met with the fire chief who wanted to thank her personally, he gave it back to her for her kindness.
Yanire Mendes was just what that little girl needed, I cannot imagine how traumatized that little girl must have been.
She was very brave to step into that scene not knowing the horror she was about to witness.
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