Family credits brave 10-year-old with saving mom, siblings after crash

Kilah Mackey had just left her husband Kevin's work place on May 31. She took him lunch, but on the way home, the sky turned dark, a tornado warning was issued and the sky dumped a deluge.

Mackey had her four children in the car with her. The car hydroplaned, went off the road and into a concrete-lined drainage ditch.

“I am just grateful every day that we are alive.” Mackey said.

The car was partially submerged in water. Mackey says she was trapped, with water up to her chest.

She called out for each of her children, but only the youngest three answered.

“I just let out a cry from the bottom of my stomach. That hurt,” she said.

Tavia Mackey, 10, had been sitting in the back seat on the passenger side. The car was crushed in the middle, so she couldn't see anyone after the crash, and her mom couldn't see or hear her.

“I thought she had drowned inside the vehicle,” Tavia said.

What Kilah Mackey didn't know was that Tavia was able to squeeze out of the car. She took her wet shoes off and ran for help.

“It was just scary,” Tavia said. “I didn't think nobody was alive. I thought everybody was dead.”

Tavia remembers car after car passing her on the road.

Latwone Mizelle was driving home on N.C. 58. The storm had just passed when she saw a young girl running down the road.

“She was soaking wet,” Mizelle said.

Mizelle stopped the car, and the little girl ran up to her.

“She said, ‘My family, my family, they drowned!’” Mizelle recalls.

Mizelle called police, then called her husband to come help.

In the meantime, Kilah Mackey says three men came to help her.

Michael Warren was one of them.

“It was terrifying,” Warren said. “It was something to see."

Warren was unable to get the family out of the car, and he could only comfort them until rescue help arrived.

“I'm telling you, it was tough,” he said.

Kilah Mackey credits Tavia's run for help as a big factor in saving their family.

“She's our hero," Kilah Mackey said.

But that's not the end of the story.

Kilah Mackey was 34 weeks pregnant at the time of the crash. Nine days after the accident, she gave birth.

“While we were on the way to the hospital, she was delivered on the side of the road by her daddy," Kilah Mackey said.

The family's newest addition is named Miracle Journey Mackey.