Child Crawls Out of N.Y. Wreckage to Save Mom

Dec. 12--BERNE -- Aaron Wright is barely old enough to tie his shoes, but he knows what to do when you need to think quick and there isn't a second to spare.

It was Saturday afternoon, and Aaron and his mother had just been in a car accident on Joslyn School Road. The car flipped as it skid off the pavement and rolled down a snow-covered, 50-foot embankment. When it came to a stop, Aaron's mother, Dolores Dober, was dangling in her seat belt in the driver's seat of her overturned 1999 Chrysler Cirrus.

Aaron immediately squeezed out of the back seat and trudged up the steep, slick incline that, to a young child, must have seemed as though it were a high peak of the Adirondacks.

Once he reached the summit, he flagged down passers-by who pulled up to the scene.

Aaron is 6 years old.

"In my line of work, you don't get a chance to send out a whole lot of positive news," said Acting Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, who gave the account of accident and rescue. "He's a smart little fella."

The events unfolded just after noon when Dober was driving southbound on the two-mile connection between routes 85 and 443. When she took her eyes of the road for one second, the sedan started to cross into the other lane.

When Dober looked up, she saw a pickup truck bearing down in the opposite direction and swerved back to avoid it. But Dober overcompensated and turned too fast and too hard to her right, sending the car tumbling down the embankment.

Once the car came to a stop on its roof on the cold, snowy earth, Aaron freed himself and made his ascent.

Apple said the driver of the pickup truck that nearly collided with Dober's sedan stopped and ran back for help. Several other motorists stopped and dialed 911.

Berne and Westerlo fire departments quickly got to the scene and were able to carefully pull Dober from her battered sedan.

Dober and her son were both rushed by ambulance to Albany Medical Center Hospital, but suffered only minor injuries and were later released.

Apple said no charges would be filed against either driver.

No one was home at Dober's listed address Sunday and the family could not be reached for comment by phone as well.

"I'm sure she's very proud of her little man," Apple said.

Reach Bryan Fitzgerald at 454-5414 or bfitzgerald@timesunion.com. Follow him on Twitter: @BFitzgeraldTU.

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