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Like father, like daughter at Polk County Fire Rescue
Ken Suarez reports.
WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - The quick thinking of a Polk County 8-year-old may have saved a woman’s life.
Third-grader Paisley Varner was home with her five-year-old sister and her dad’s girlfriend, Autumn Simmons, recently.
"She [Simmons] started spinning around and fell on our tile kitchen floor," Varner told FOX 13."I knew something was happening. She bit her tongue."
Simmons can’t remember much other than everything going black all of a sudden.
"I went to get a drink and that’s the last thing I remember," Simmons said.
At that time, Varner didn’t know that Simmons had occasional seizures, because the medicine she took to control them didn’t always work.
Confronted with what to do, the third-grader pushed the emergency button on her phone, which called her dad. He called 911 then dashed home.
The crew took care of Simmons, and now she appears to be fine.
"As a father, I am so proud of her," he said. "To be faced with a situation like that, to be brave and not panic, to do the right thing."
The 8-year-old's quick actions prevented something terrible.
"I just profusely thanked her because she saved my life," said Simmons.
Varner says his daughter could have done more if necessary.
Varner's father is an EMT for Polk Fire Rescue. He says he had to be recertified in CPR back in January, and she went with him to the class.
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"She told me I was going to start CPR, if I had to,’ the proud father told FOX 13.
When asked if he believed she could have performed CPR he responded with no hesitation.
"One hundred percent, yes," he said.