LAWRENCE TOWNSHIP — His green T-shirt reads “Mommy’s little hero,” and though he’s only 4, his mom will tell you he earned that title.

Tara Ferguson, of Lawrence Township, said she is thankful to be alive and has her son, Clay, to credit for it.

In August, the Fergusons moved into a new home on County Road 6. Husband,

Jon, and the two older children, Luke, 5,

and Katelyn, 8, were away at work and school and she was home with Clay.

Tara Ferguson said she was putting things away one day when she slipped on a trash bag, fell and hit her head.

“I went down, fell sideways and knocked myself out,” she recalled. “When I woke up, I couldn’t move and I couldn’t use one side of my body.”

Making matters worse, the only telephone available was a landline that was too far away for her to reach. Having never taught Clay to use the phone to dial 9-1-1, she asked him to hand her paper and a pencil. She drew what numbers she needed him to dial and told him to dial those numbers and tell the people on the other end she was hurt.

“When the first call came in, he hung up. We tried to call back and there was no answer. I was ready to send the sheriff’s office when he called back,” dispatcher Gina Delong recalled.

“I told them, ‘Mommy fell,’” Clay recalled.

Though he did not know his street address, Delong and fellow dispatcher Mickee Fry used the Enhanced 911 system to determine where the Fergusons’ house was and sent emergency services workers to find the injured woman.

By the time Lawrence Township first responders arrived, Tara Ferguson was in poor shape and slipping in and out of consciousness.

“My whole left side was numb and I was blue,” she recalled. “I had landed to where I had obstructed my airway so I wasn’t breathing.”

Meanwhile, young Clay had found Mom a blanket and had covered her up.

“He kept saying, ‘Mommy, don’t cry,’” Tara Ferguson recalled.

Tara Ferguson ended up spending the night in the intensive care unit at King’s Daughters Medical Center and two days to treat a pinched nerve.

She is well now, and thankful for first responders, dispatchers and paramedics who helped save her life.

She is also thankful for a little boy who may be too shy to talk on the telephone and too shy even to recount his heroics to family and friends, but is her hero nonetheless —

and even has a T-shirt to prove it.