After Car Falls on Dad, 8-Year-Old Son Rescues Him

JT Parker can't explain how he had the strength to jack it up
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 9, 2017 1:23 PM CST
After Car Falls on Dad, 8-Year-Old Son Rescues Him
JT Parker and his dad, Stephen.   (YouTube)

"Jack it up quick" are the last words Stephen Parker recalls yelling before passing out, the weight of his Toyota Prius slowly crushing him. The only one around to hear him was his 8-year-old son, JT. The elder Parker and his 17-year-old son, Mason, had been working on the car together in the family's backyard in Sugar City, Idaho, when Mason cut his hand and went inside. With JT looking on, Stephen began trying to remove a sticky axle. Suddenly, however, the car shifted and fell on top of him. "I thought, 'This is it. There's no way [JT] can jack up this car,'" Parker tells East Idaho News of the incident last July. "I was totally trapped, and then I passed out."

But JT, weighing just 50 pounds, jumped into action—literally. He maneuvered the jack into position and started bouncing all his weight on the handle. He jumped for 15 minutes, until the car was lifted, then got his brother, who called 911. Soon after, a helicopter landed in the yard and took Parker to a hospital. But "all they found was 13 broken ribs," says Parker, who was back home two days later. "It was just a miracle." JT—honored by the American Red Cross as one of 11 "East Idaho Real Heroes" last week—later tried to jack up the same car but failed. Parker tells the Post Register he must've "had help from above." Or as JT puts it, "angels." (More uplifting news stories.)

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