Brave 4-year-old's quick thinking when dad lost consciousness highlights important parenting lesson

Sometimes, little kids can show incredible courage when it's least expected. They can be a great help to their parents during unexpected health crises. A dad on Reddit, u/b3dl4, shared how his brave 4-year-old daughter played a crucial role in saving his life. He started the post by mentioning how he returned home after dropping his wife off at a car mechanic shop. He was supposed to look after his two daughters, the younger one being two and a half years old and the older one was merely four.

"I remember trying to put my youngest down for a nap, but she was fighting it, so we came back into the lounge room. At that point, I remember having a sudden, really strange sensation come over me like a really loud white noise and my head was exploding," the man recalled in his post. He thought that dialing the emergency number to call an ambulance was the best idea at that point. But as he typed the emergency number on his phone, he blacked out all of a sudden. When he finally regained consciousness, police and medical staff were coming into the house. "I was extremely disoriented and had no idea what was going on. The cops sat me down on my couch and asked me a few questions. Then the ambulance started attending to me," the post continued.

One of the cops rang his wife and explained what had happened. She rushed home in distress to find her husband getting carried away in an ambulance. A medical staff attending to the man believed that he had a mini-stroke, but the CT scan done at the hospital revealed that he had a seizure. It happened due to low phosphate levels in his body, as the man was on an intermittent fasting diet. The hospital assured him that he would recover soon enough.

"Later, when I regained more sense, I found out that my eldest daughter picked up the phone I'd dropped on the ground and spoke to the operator. She told them that 'daddy wouldn't wake up' and that I was on the floor panting and breathing funny. Then also managed to tell them our actual street address (we always talk about that). She stayed on the phone until cops and ambulance arrived. The fact that there were young children unattended with an adult in distress meant they got here super quick," the man wrote further, adding that if the emergency services hadn't been notified, he could've been on the ground for a lot longer with the girls all by themselves.

"The presence of mind shown by my daughter has blown me away. I'm just so proud of her and thankful for what she did. Luckily, it wasn't a stroke, but if it was, she could well have saved my life. She knows she did the right thing and is very proud of herself for talking to the lady on the phone, but I don't think she understands the full extent of it. I don't know how to explain or show her what she did was amazing. I guess as she grows up more and hears the story, she will understand how truly awesome what she did was," his post concluded. In an update to the post, he wrote that he is back to following "old-fashioned calorie counting" rather than following intermittent fasting and is taking phosphate supplements.

Reddit users applauded the little girl for her presence of mind and also appreciated her parents for educating her about necessary things she could do in a crisis like this. u/din0saurr wrote, "Your daughter is a product of great parenting. You should be proud of yourself and your wife for raising such an amazing little girl. I'm glad you're doing alright and everything worked out." u/Erulastiel commented, "Kids are truly smarter and more in tune with the world around them than we give them credit for." u/LuckyMuckle added, "This is one of those stories that will go down in your family history. For generations, the children will teach their children. Kudos and good health to you all."

u/Juniper_Moonbeam shared, "I used to be a children’s librarian and if kids needed their card number they had to verify the account info to get it. The number of 8-10 year olds who didn’t know their parents' phone number or their street addresses was depressingly high. I always made a point to say I would give them a prize if they could come back and tell me both parents' full names, a phone number for mom or dad, and their street address. Kids would drag their parents into the library to get a prize from me after memorizing the info. Parents were always surprised when their kid didn’t just know this info the first time. I think some parents just forget to teach it!"