22-Y-O Mom Saves Twin Daughters in Rolling Car by Laying Down Behind It to Become Human 'Speed Bump'
A 22-year-old mother from Lawrence, Mass., sacrificed her body to save the lives of her twin daughters by becoming a "human speed bump" to stop her car from rolling down her driveway into traffic with the girls trapped inside.
Mindy Tran told ABC News that she and her daughters, Saleen and Sydney, had recently moved from a shelter into their new apartment when the freak incident took place.
A WCVB report noted that the incident occurred on March 6, just days after she had signed her lease.
"It felt like I was starting a new life," she told ABC News from her hospital bed, where she is nursing a broken leg along with a dislocated shoulder and hip.
"The girls had started at daycare and we just moved in. It seems like when things are going too well, something bad will happen," she lamented.
She explained that she backed her Honda into the garage with her daughters buckled in the back seat. She then got out of the car to close the door and quickly noticed that the car was moving.
"I was like, 'What is going on?' And I see my daughters sitting there in the backseat and of course my first instinct is, 'I have to push the car back into the driveway,'" she said.
She said she eliminated that idea after she realized the car was moving down her driveway toward traffic and quickly locked into her maternal instincts.
"My daughters are my everything, my everything, and I don't want to see them in the hospital, and I knew at that time it was either mine (life) or there's," she said.
"I laid down horizontally, using my body as a speed bump to stop the car," she told ABC News.
Once she had done that, a neighbor also came over to help.
"My neighbor jumped in and he asked what I wanted them to do. I said make sure my daughters get out of the car safely," she said.
Tran's daughters were rescued without injury and she's now grateful.
"My daughters and I are allright and are keeping our heads up," she said. "I'm lucky to be alive."