I was at the park with my two young boys, aged five and seven, riding scooters along a wide path that looped around the grass. My eldest has cerebral palsy, so my husband had modified a scooter with a large base so that we could ride it together. My son stood at the front and I stood behind him. It meant he could join in just like other kids, and he loved it.
When you have boys, you need to run them like dogs – the goal is to burn as much energy as possible every time you’re out of the house. So even though it had started to drizzle, we set off on another loop of the park on our scooters. But when we hit a puddle coming round the bend, the scooter slipped out from under me. We fell sideways, landing on the ground. I realised my son wasn’t conscious. In that moment all I felt was sheer terror.
I didn’t have my phone and frantically called out for help. The park was empty save for a group of teenagers who had been sitting under a picnic shelter. They sprang into action as soon as they heard me, all five of them running through the rain to get to us.
One immediately called an ambulance. My younger son had run off, frightened by everything happening, so another of the teenagers went after him so I could stay with my older child. Two others went to the park entrance so they could guide the ambulance to us. The last, a girl, brought the blankets they had been sitting on, wrapping one around my son. She draped another around my shoulders and held on to me while I sat there holding my son in my arms, crying. As she hugged me, she kept repeating, “You’re doing a great job as a mum.”
At the hospital, my son regained consciousness and thankfully ended up being completely fine.
Perhaps because of their age I expected less of those teenagers, but they stepped in without hesitation. They were calm and completely focused on helping my boys and me, a world away from the endless moral panic over teenagers behaving badly.
I can still remember the small face of the girl who had her arm around me. I was so scared and she was a sweet, soothing presence; an unexpected source of comfort in a terrible moment.
