Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 17/01) - A brave five-year-old boy is living proof that teaching kids about how to handle emergency situations works.

Tostin Wannamaker turned theory into practice one morning last week when Darren Turner, his mother's commonlaw partner had a seizure.

Yellowknife firefighter Chucker Dewar was called to the scene.

"We received a report of an unconscious man," he explained. "Tostin was outside directing us to the proper location. It was the first time I ever saw a little kid respond like that."

Dewar was speaking about more than just Tostin standing outside without a jacket on the steps. Dewar soon learned Tostin was alone when the seizure happened and got help right away.

He was playing computer games while Turner was in the kitchen and suddenly fell to the floor.

"At first I thought it was a joke but then it wasn't a joke so I got Chuck," Tostin said in the hospital with Turner and Tostin's mother Delynn the next day.

Chuck Dawson is the downstairs neighbour.

After the seizure, Turner struggled to the bathroom where he became sick and then made his way to the couch.

There, Dawson and Tostin began talking to him. He said both were saying everything was going to be OK.

"Then I went outside so they would know where we were and I waved my arms up in the air," Tostin explained.

"I waved them hard because I couldn't just wave them," he added.

"Then they would think I was just waving (hello)."

Dewar said Tostin led rescue workers inside and told them what happened.

After Turner came around and was wheeled to the ambulance in a stretcher, Tostin became overwhelmed and began to cry.

Tostin said he was crying a little bit before, too, "but when I got Chuck I stopped."

Turner's seizure was unexpected and the reason is for it is still not clear. He had another unexplained seizure years earlier but was glad Tostin was brave enough to know what to do this time.

"I don't know if I would have handled it much better myself," Tostin's mom Delynn said, explaining how she had taken Tostin to sessions at the fire hall to teach him how to handle these types of situations.

Tostin was happily attempting to take the lid off a bottle of pop and joking with nurses the next day at the hospital while Turner recovered.

"How many days is Darren going to stay here," he asked one of them.

The nurse replied, probably just one more.

"Maybe two?" he replied, joking, with thoughts of Turner's computer games sitting at home unattended.

"No. He'll still let me play his games because I saved his life," he said proudly. "Well, not really, I just helped."