“Credit where credit is due…and that credit goes to Zion,” said Drew Garner, a wrestling coach at Troup High School.

On Thursday morning, Garner had been driving to school when he saw what at first looked like a car that missed their turn near the Bryant Lake subdivision on Highway 27, veering into oncoming traffic.

Garner quickly moved out of the way, realizing the driver was in distress. As he got close,r he saw the woman was vomiting and convulsing.

“I could see that the fingers were clenched and the arms were folded into her chest, and she was shaking, you know, as it appeared to be a seizure, and so I immediately pulled off into the entrance door and got out, started running to her vehicle,” Garner said.

As he was running, someone ran past him quickly. A young man threw open the driver’s door.

“He dove into the floorboard, punched the brake down,” Garner said. Later, he would find out the young man’s name is Zion Reed. Reed is from Elmore County, not local and had no way of knowing the driver or Garner.

Reed was two steps ahead, knowing that if someone was seizing, they may accidentally hit the gas.

The coach knows the importance of working as a team. As Reed was taking control of the car, both men reached for their phones.

“I [thought], how I can add value; I could take the phone and I could talk to the dispatcher,” Garner recalled.

As a man of faith, he explained, “The Lord knew who needed to be where, when, and why.”

Call it faith or serendipity, but while Zion was holding down the pedal and Garner was on the phone with dispatch, another man approached and was able to identify the driver.

Then an off-duty Sheriff’s deputy arrived to help Zion with care for the driver. In less than five minutes, more Sheriff’s Deputies, LaGrange Police Officers, and EMTs/paramedics arrived. Garner expressed his thanks to these first responders.

Once the situation was in control, Garner disconnected the phone from dispatch and got to take in the scene in front of him.

“I’m no hero…I felt like, based on what I saw, this kid deserves what recognition he did. I mean, he did a great job.”

Garner would reach out to Reed later and ask if he could share his story on social media. He was pleased with the outpouring from the community, not for himself but for Zion.

“[With] everything that’s going wrong in the world today, this is so positive and this was so good. This young man deserves to be recognized.”

As a coach and mentor at Troup High, he wants his athletes to show the same kind of empathy as Zion did.

“You have spectators in life and you have participants,” Garner told his wrestlers. “It’s easy to drive…It takes some guts to stop what you’re doing and go help somebody else.”

Garner also hopes that by sharing his story, it may help bring awareness to seizure disorders.

“It may be [that] not many people are aware about epilepsy….I’m uneducated about it, but maybe this is something that brings more awareness to people that have this.”

The driver is safe and has been in contact with Garner and Reed. The story has been shared thousands of times on social media.

Garner ended his post by putting it simply, “We need more Zion Reeds in our community.”