Child of Courage

Hero schoolboy steered a car across dual carriageway, after his mum collapsed at the wheel while travelling at 65mph

Ben’s mum Lauren had picked him up from school last December. They were five minutes from home, on the A120 near Colchester, Essex, when Lauren began staring into space and was unresponsive to Ben’s questions.

Initially he thought she was joking, but when the car began to swerve into the right-hand lane at 65mph, he knew something was wrong.

The car swerved across both lanes of the dual carriageway before hitting the central reservation and scraping along the barrier.

Lauren had now started shaking and her muscles tensed causing her foot to push down on the accelerator. Ben, then eight, undid his seatbelt, grabbed the wheel, steering the car back across two lanes and on to the grass verge where it eventually stalled and came to a stop.

Ben even managed to put the hazard lights on to warn other drivers.

Lauren was now slumped over the steering wheel, and Ben feared she had died, but she regained consciousness and made a full recovery

DRIVER Quick-thinking Ben with mum Lauren

in hospital. Asked where he got the remarkable confidence to take control of the car, Ben, now aged nine, credited his love of playing racing video games on his PlayStation 4.

Lauren says: “I’ve never had a seizure before so there’s no way he would have known what to do in that situation. I’m so proud of Ben.“