This quick-thinking teenager purposely caused a road accident to save another driver’s life.
Olivia Jones of Clearwater, Florida, had only recently gotten her license. Two days before Christmas in 2018, she was happily driving her first car, a 2003 Nissan Altima, when the unexpected happened.
The teen stopped at a red light, and when she looked over to the car in the next lane, she noticed its driver wasn’t looking too well.
“I thought she was texting, because she was looking down, straight down. And then she started seizing,” Olivia recalled.
Olivia knew the woman was in serious trouble, so she had to act fast. She opened her car door and got out to tell the people in the cars behind her that the woman needed help.
Unfortunately, the other drivers couldn’t care less. Her call for help fell on deaf ears.
Olivia knew then and there that she had to act alone, so she did what she thought was the best option she had—causing an intentional car accident.
Olivia pulled in front of the woman’s vehicle and let it hit hers. It was the only way she could stop it from sliding into oncoming traffic.
Then, Olivia got out of her car, set the woman’s vehicle in park, and took her seatbelt off. The woman had blood in her mouth and had peed herself, so Olivia helped her onto the floor as she called 911.
Just two minutes later, authorities arrived and rushed the woman to the hospital.
“She just jumped right in. It was amazing. It was amazing. We’re so proud of her,” Clearwater assistant principal, Leslie Hopkins, said. “I was just really blown away when I was told the story. That’s so her. That’s so Olivia.”
Olivia admitted she was terrified at the time, but it didn’t keep her from doing what needed to be done.
“Oh, yeah. My legs were shaking. I didn’t know… I just… I don’t know. I was really nervous,” she said.
Olivia said she’s typically a good driver and had never gotten into any accidents that were her fault. And while her car had sustained a pretty bad dent, she didn’t mind. It was a small price to pay for helping save someone’s life.
Olivia said her friends think what she had done was “dumb,” but she disagrees. She knows she did the right thing sacrificing her own welfare to ensure the safety of another.
Olivia, a star athlete at Clearwater High School, plans to attend college on a volleyball scholarship. She hopes to work in the medical field someday and become an orthopedic surgeon.
While this dream will take some time as she’s still young, the way she acted when faced with a medical emergency proved that she had what it takes to think and act fast in distressing situations.
Olivia has always talked to her parents about where she wanted to be in the future. Perhaps, this incident was also meant to reaffirm her calling.
“I always talk to them about who I want to be in the medical field and how I want to save people and they’re like, ‘That’s how you got started. That’s your first step.’” she said.
Olivia’s selfless act caught the attention of a local auto body shop. They fixed up her car for free and smoothed out every dent and chip! They also decked it out with black and red stripes on each side, which are the colors of the Clearwater Tornadoes.
It was their way of giving back to Olivia for doing the right thing.
“Being young that gives her incentive to be good, to not to turn your back on somebody but to help somebody out,” said Alan Bland, the man who fixed her car.
If it weren’t for Olivia’s brave actions, this situation could have ended worse. Luckily, she cared enough to actually see what was going on instead of just driving away, like what the other drivers behind them did.
Indeed, we need more people like Olivia! Watch this heroic teen’s interview with 10 Tampa Bay in the video below.