For most children, their parents are their heroes. But John Smith of Panama City, Fla., can proudly say that his 9-year-old daughter, Esteria Smith, is his hero.
As he picked up Esteria from her karate class, Smith knew something was wrong, he told WJHG. His daughter also noticed that something wasn't right with her father. "I start thinking to myself, 'Well, what's wrong with him? He's not fussing. He's not telling me how to do this. He's not telling me how to do that,' " she said. When they got in the car, Smith decided that he was going to drive himself to the hospital.
As he drove, Smith started losing his vision and panicking. He handed his daughter the phone, but Esteria had a different plan. "I took over the wheel," she said. Father and daughter were eight blocks away from Bay Medical hospital when Esteria grabbed the wheel, reaching from the backseat as her father accelerated. They hit a curb and almost struck an ambulance before stopping safely in front of the emergency room. Smith lost his vision, motor skills and consciousness.
Meanwhile, Esteria gave nurses a report and updated her mother when she arrived at the hospital. Her dad, as it turned out, was suffering the effects of a stage 4 brain tumor, for which doctors are now devising a treatment plan.
Read more at WJHG.
Jozen Cummings is the author and creator of the popular relationship blog Until I Get Married, which is currently in development for a television series with Warner Bros. He also hosts a weekly podcast with WNYC about Empire called Empire Afterparty, is a contributor at VerySmartBrothas.com and works at Twitter as an editorial curator. Follow him on Twitter.