Precocious Five-Year-Old Helps Save Dad's Life

A quick-thinking Newark kindergartner is being hailed as a hero for helping save his father, who suffered a stroke while driving Monday, Today.com reported.

Nathaniel Dancy Jr., a 5-year-old student at West Side Park Elementary School, was traveling on Rt. 22 with his dad, Nathaniel Dancy Sr., 33, who suffered an aneurysm. Dancy Sr. was able to pull the car to the side of the road.

Young Nathaniel then grabbed his father’s cell phone and called his grandmother, eventually spelling out “furniture” and the number 22, which appeared on a sign near where the two had pulled over. He also said they had just gone through a tunnel, referring to a nearby overpass. After speaking with firefighters at a nearby firehouse, his grandmother was able to determine that father and son were parked near a furniture store in Hillside.

Dancy Sr.’s wife, Janel Blackman, who had joined the call, rushed to the scene as the boy’s grandmother called 9-1-1.

Dancy Sr., 33, is still in the intensive care unit at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and is being put on a feeding tube, according to Blackman.

Nathaniel Dancy Jr., who is already reading at a third-grade level and has mastered complex words like “onomatopoeia” and “decipher,” has not fully realized what happened to his father, Blackman also told Today.

“I said to him, ‘Daddy might not be the same daddy you remember,’ and he said, 'I hope my dad doesn't end up in a wheelchair.' It just melted my heart. He's just so compassionate as a little guy.”