Albert Bassett
New Canaan Boy, 6, Receives ‘Bravery Award’ from Fire Department
|
About two months ago, 5-year-old New Canaan resident John Tashjian was sitting in a car seat while his father, Luke, drove them up Route 20 in Sturbridge, Mass.
Suddenly, a motorist swerved into the oncoming traffic lane in the 50 mph zone and hit the Tashjians head-on. While his dad suffered a broken vertebrae, young John suffered a broken collarbone and his car seat harness, while it did its job, tore the skin off his shoulders. The pair “rolled backwards across two lanes of oncoming traffic without being t-boned on John and my side of the car,” Fire Commission Chair Jack Horner said, reading from a firsthand account from Luke Tashjian at Tuesday night’s regular meeting of the appointed body. “Our car rolled about 250 feet since it was slightly downhill to where it hit a parked car at the local towing company where they impound your car after an accident and stopped,” he continued at the meeting, held in Fire Department headquarters and attended by the Tashjian family.
Incredibly, though his dad found himself unable to move, the little boy became “very calm and authoritative and told me to call 911,” Luke Tashjian said in the firsthand account.
It continued:
“I was lying in a puddle and told him I didn’t have my cell phone. He told me to find my cell phone and call 911.