A Mother Had a Seizure at the Wheel—A Passing Stranger Pulled Her and Three Children From a Canal
When Shyenique Wilkins suffered a seizure and her car flipped into a Florida canal with her three children inside, a passing stranger named Casey Curtis pulled all four to safety from a road where “there was nobody around.”
Human StoriesGNGV Editorial Team4 min read
On a Sunday in February 2026, Shyenique Wilkins was driving along Allapattah Road in Martin County, Florida, with her three young children—ages eight, four, and just four months old. Without warning, she suffered a seizure behind the wheel. The car left the road and flipped into a canal, sinking into the water with the family trapped inside, on a stretch of road where almost no one was passing by.
That morning, Casey Curtis happened to be one of the few people on that road. When he came upon the submerged car, he did not hesitate. He made his way to the vehicle and forced open a door. “I got to the car, opened up the door, and there were three kids sitting there, staring at me, helpless,” he recalled. One by one, he got the children out, then helped the unconscious mother, pulling all four members of the family from the canal.
The children emerged unharmed—a remarkable outcome given how quickly a submerged car can become a tragedy. Wilkins, however, was in serious condition and was hospitalized on a ventilator. To help with the family’s mounting medical expenses, a GoFundMe campaign was launched, drawing donations from a community moved by their near-loss.
Curtis was the first to insist that timing had been everything. The road was otherwise empty, he noted, and the car had gone under in a spot where another driver might never have seen it at all. Had he passed a minute later, or taken a different route, the outcome could have been unthinkable. Instead, a single stranger in the right place chose to act—and a mother and her three children are alive because he did.
