When seven-year-old Aiden McCullough’s older sister, Morgan Smith had a seizure in the family pool, he ran right to her, yelling for help.
It wasn’t the first time. Morgan, 20, has been suffering seizures since she was a teenager – but she doesn’t know why.
But usually she can feel when they’re coming on.
This time was different. She had no warning, and was in the wrong place to lose consciousness.
Morgan could easily have drown, but luckily her little brother’s screams for help worked, and her father, Benji raced outside to rescue her.
Aiden McCullough ran to his sister and screamed for help when she had a seizure and fell into the pool on Thursday. The little boy’s quick action saved her life
Last Thursday was a blazing hot summer day in Brantley, Alabama, and Morgan just wanted to cool down.
She sat on the bottom step of the family pool, enjoying the water, and uncertain why her mother and sister were yelling for her to get out.
‘I didn’t feel it [coming on],’ Morgan told DailyMail.com.
‘I was standing there, staring off, like in a daze, like I was there but I wasn’t there.’
Usually, before a seizure, Morgan’s stomach gets upset, and she feels dizzy and a bit fuzzy-headed.
She felt fine this time though, and ignored her family’s pleas for her to climb out of the pool.
Then Morgan went down.
Morgan usually feels a seizure coming, but this time she had no physical warning
Aiden didn’t hesitate, running to his sister and jumping in with her even though he wasn’t big enough to pull his sister from the family’s above ground pool
She doesn’t remember what happens, but her little brother undoubtedly will for years to come.
Aiden ran to his sister.
‘They told me all he could do was scream blood murder for somebody to help me,’ Morgan says.
‘My daddy ran outside and jumped in the pool and grabbed me.’
When Morgan’s father got outside, he found Aiden holding Morgan, who was slumped on top of the little boy.
Her father pulled Morgan’s limp body over the side of the pool to safety.
Thankfully, the seizure passed and Morgan came to, unscathed.
Morgan knows she might not have survived the harrowing seizure if not for her little brother
‘I knew that I was okay, and I just held [Aiden] and cried forever in that moment,’ Morgan says.
‘Because in that moment everything could’ve changed if he wasn’t there.’
Morgan doesn’t have insurance, and has been denied several times when she’s tried to get covered, so she didn’t go to the hospital, and she’s never been able to get a formal diagnosis for her seizure disorder.
But a few days later, Morgan had another seizure, ‘a hard one,’ she says, in the kitchen.
It was bad enough that her worried father took her to the hospital.
Morgan still wasn’t given a diagnosis, but she was put back on Keppra, an anti-seizure drug often prescribed to treat epilepsy.
With the medication, she’s okay now – but no longer allowed to go near any water unless an adult is around.
He may not have been strong enough (yet) to pull his sister from the pool, but Aiden is the reason Morgan is alive today.