Troy defensive tackle is being called a "guardian angel" by a mother after he came to the assistance of her and her two children after they were involved in a car accident.
Slater was driving on US Highway 29 on his way back to Troy on Sunday when he saw a car accident occur in front of his vehicle. According to Slater, he noticed a car in front of him was swerving, so he backed off a bit to put some distance between himself and the vehicle, and that's when he saw the swerving car make contact with an SUV.
"Right when I backed off a little bit, the car in front of me sped up and hit an SUV that was in front of them," Slater told WSFA 12 News. "They bumped the SUV and it made the SUV turn and it lost control and rolled at least three to four times down the ravine. Once I saw the car flip, then I immediately turned off to the side."
Inside the SUV were Carla Schoonover and her two children, Natalie and Connor. After pulling over to the side of the road, Slater called 911, and then went to the vehicle to help the family inside. When he got to the car, Carla Schoonover was trying to get out of the driver's seat, while her two children had already managed to free themselves from the wreckage.
"The first thing that came to my mind was that I hoped that they were OK," Slater said. "The daughter is a soldier. She was already out of the car. She had brought her brother out of the car. The mom she still needed help out of the car. But the daughter was the bravest one of the whole situation. It was close to a tree so it could have been worse."
Slater then stayed with the family at the scene for nearly two hours to provide comfort and a witness statement to state troopers. Luckily, nobody in the family suffered anything worse than a few bumps and bruises, and Carla Schoonover referred to Slater as the family's "guardian angel" in a post about the incident on Facebook.
