Great-Grandpa Starts Slipping into Diabetic Coma, Brave Six-Year-Old Saves His Life
Children are naturally curious, which is partly why they get into so much trouble. Sometimes without even consciously thinking about it, their system operates on the question “what if.”
Fortunately, children are also fast learners, and while stubbornness may keep them from modifying their behavior based on their findings in every instance, most kids don’t have to touch a hot stove twice to file that one away.
Of course, their inquisitive nature is also used for good. Kids aren’t burdened by all the day-to-day worries that adults are, and so sometimes they see things in a different light.
We try to keep them away from some realities before they’re ready to handle them, but sometimes they gravitate to the complicated.
Aiden Smith is a curious 6-year-old boy. He noticed his great-grandpa, Brian Clark, kept using a device to check his blood.
Smith was fascinated and asked to watch. Clark considered it and agreed, and from then on the boy was allowed to watch Clark, a diabetic, check his blood sugar.
“Well for years, since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, he’s watched me, every day — well, most days — me doing my blood sugars, testing me blood sugars, taking my insulin,” Clark said, according to Caters TV.
“‘Granddad, I want to watch,’ and I says … well, I haven’t stopped him, never ever stopped him from watching me do it.”
At the time it was just an easy way to satisfy a young boy’s curiosity. It is unlikely that either of them knew just how important this knowledge would prove to be.
One morning, Clark was experiencing a hypoglycemic attack. His speech was slow, his eyesight was failing, and only Aiden could help him.
“My grandson found out what was wrong,” the proud great-grandpa said. “He gave me two jelly babies, tested me blood sugars — was 1.0.”
Aiden was on top of it. He knew that was too low, so he kept the jelly babies coming.
“Yes I know,” he told Clark. “I can see that granddad. I’ll give you some more.”
“What’s going in my head was, I couldn’t see, but I could feel him,” Clark said, his voice breaking. “I couldn’t say a lot because of me blurred speech and, you know, me speech had gone. Me eyesight was going.”
“Tested it again: 3.6. And he says ‘It’s coming up granddad,’ and I says ‘Yeah, it’ll come up a bit more now.'”
If Aiden hadn’t acted quickly, Clark could have gone into a coma. As it was, the diabetic knew he was in trouble, and he was completely at the mercy of his great-grandson.
“He did all the talking for me,” Clarke recalled. Because of all the time Aiden had spent watching Clark, he knew exactly what to do and exactly how to do it.
“What Aiden did was something special to me, and it will live with me for the rest of my life,” the emotional great-grandfather said.
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it saved Clark! Nice job, Aiden.
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