A Young boy in Colorado managed to successfully save his great-grandmother, his younger brother, and himself from potential injury or even death, all thanks to the skills he learned in Mario Kart.
Gryffin Sanders was riding in the car with his great-grandmother and his four year old brother when his great-grandmother in mid-sentence collapsed behind the wheel. The ten year old Sanders at first tried to wake up his great-grandmother, unsure what was going on (it is believed she had a mild heart attack). Sanders told reporters from Colorado's 9News what his thought process was during these critical seconds as the car began to veer into traffic going close to 60 MPH:
"My first thought was actually, is this a test or what? My heart was thumping. I tried to wake her up at first...Then, I just took the wheel and drove it into the ditch."
Gryffin managed to get the car to come to a complete stop in the muddy ditch, and others quickly stopped the help the two young boys and their great-grandmother. Nobody was hurt following the incident, and the boy's great-grandmother is recovering from her heart attack. Gryffin credits the skills he learned while playing Mario Kart as the reason he knew what to do in this very dangerous situation:
"I wanted us to get somewhere where we could out of the way of traffic, I guess...My mom actually told me after, 'I'm so glad that you turned into the ditch'...I guess I just had the instincts not to [freak out]."
Gryffin is surprisingly cavalier about the whole incident, and does not seem to worry about what could have potentially happened if he had done nothing or chosen poorly. His father, Sean Sanders, recognizes how dangerous the scenario was, and is thankful that his son knew what to do:
"It was all him and he made a very wise decision at a very critical moment and I couldn't be a prouder father...The car could have rolled. There could've been, you know, a travesty of an injury or even possibly a fatality. The good news is we will never have to know."
What could have resulted in several deaths has been averted thanks to a simple video game, and perhaps Nintendo will hear about the story and find a way to get a reward out to Gryffin. In any case, now children have a strong excuse to play racing games for hours on end.