Sometimes being awake early changes everything.

An Alabama teenager helped save a 76-year-old woman after spotting her stumbling in a parking lot in Tuscumbia, according to WAFF 48.

Johnson Thompson, 17, told the outlet he could not sleep on the morning of June 30, so he got an early start at his family’s workshop. Just before 5 a.m., he noticed a car slowly pull into a parking lot across the street.

“She got out of her car and she was stumbling around so I went out to the end of our parking lot to check to see if she was okay,” Thompson told the outlet. “That’s when she explained to me she had a terrible headache and was wanting to know where the nearest emergency room was.”

Thompson brought the woman, later identified as Fannie Garner, a chair and called 911. He stayed with her until paramedics arrived.

Doctors later determined Garner had suffered a brain bleed. WAFF 48 reported that she was flown to a hospital in Birmingham for treatment.

Garner had unknowingly driven about 32 kilometres from Cherokee to Tuscumbia before encountering Thompson. She later said she remembered very little about the hours leading up to the drive, though she recalled having a severe headache.

“Nothing but God,” Garner told WAFF 48. “It had to be because I don’t remember it. I got there and I got there safe.”

The following day, Garner’s family tried to find the teen who had helped her. Her sister, Gwen Goodloe, traced the location where Garner had been picked up by emergency responders, found Thompson’s family’s warehouse and connected with someone who knew him.

“Well, I felt relieved and so thankful for humanity that, you know, somebody would pay attention,” Goodloe told WAFF 48.

When they reunited, Garner’s family gave Thompson a homemade lifesaving award to thank him. Goodloe described him as an “angel,” and Garner’s daughter, Tobisha, called him a “hero,” according to WAFF 48.

“I will never ever forget him,” Garner said with a laugh while patting Thompson on the back. “We already have plans for his graduation and that’s next year,” she added.

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