West Columbia 10-year-old saves the day in rescue of elderly woman

George Crowe took off from work a little early Tuesday. He had important business to attend to. He had to find the little neighborhood boy who just might have saved his grandmother’s life the day before.

Crowe’s 85-year-old grandmother, who is known as Maw, gets around on a walker. As her husband took a nap inside Monday afternoon, Maw went outside for some fresh air, walking from the backyard around to the front of the house. Once in the front, she saw what would be her undoing – a few weeds. When she bent down to pull them up, down she went, and couldn’t get up.

She told her family she lay there helpless for about 45 minutes to an hour, calling for help as loud as she could. But her West Columbia neighborhood is a quiet corner of the county. Very little traffic comes down her street, especially at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, and nobody heard her.

Luckily for Maw, 10-year-old Charles Warren had gotten home from school a little while earlier. The neighborhood boy is a familiar sight riding his bicycle up and down the street, and Monday was a beautiful day for bike riding.

Charles saw Maw lying in her front yard and rushed over to check on her. When he realized she needed more help than he could give, he sprang into action, rousing Maw’s husband from his nap to summon help. Charles then sat with Maw, holding her arm until help arrived in the form of Maw’s daughter Cindy Crowe, and two granddaughters, Jennifer Pittman and Lindsey Dangerfield, a nurse. But then the little boy, who had comforted Maw and kept her company during her ordeal, just slipped away as relatives and ultimately an ambulance arrived.

George Crowe heard at the hospital what Charles had done and on Tuesday set out to find the little boy who might well have saved his grandmother’s life.

Charles again was riding his bike on the street and politely answered, “Yes, sir,” when asked if he was the little boy who had helped the woman who had fallen. Amazingly, Charles hadn’t told anybody what he had done, Crowe discovered. The boy hadn’t bragged about his exploits, hadn’t even told his mother what had happened, Crowe found out.

In the course of talking to Charles, Crowe learned the boy was a fifth-grader at Saluda River Academy of the Arts in West Columbia.

Crowe decided he wanted to make sure this quiet-spoken young man got the recognition he so richly deserved.

So Crowe called the school and praised Charles’ lifesaving action.

Upon hearing of her pupil’s heroics, school Principal Tonya Fryer questioned Charles about the incident. “He was very humble,” Fryer said. “He said, ‘You mean they are still talking about that?’ ”

As for Crowe’s grandmother, she came home from the hospital Wednesday, praising her “little hero” and pledging to “never go outside by myself again.”

This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 9:36 PM.