Family Asked for Help Finding Strangers Who Saved 7-Year-Old and His Mom. They’re Already Planning a Reunion

Jonni Evans had just left her son’s doctor’s appointment when she drove through what looked like a puddle on an Ohio highway earlier this month. Within seconds, her car began to hydroplane, sending her and her 7-year-old son Michael across the center line into oncoming traffic.

When she opened her eyes, the windshield was shattered and smoke filled the car. Michael was silent in the back seat.

“I was trapped. My legs were stuck,” Evans told PEOPLE through tears. “I couldn’t see. I couldn’t move at all, and I just started screaming for someone to get my son out of the car.”

As her car spun out of control on Columbia Parkway around 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 6, Evans saw an SUV heading straight toward her. Moments later, it slammed into the front of her car with crushing force.

Michael was left paralyzed from the chest down. He had his left leg amputated below the knee, lost two-thirds of his bowel, and nearly a month later remains in the hospital, intubated and fighting infection.

Evans, who lives in Cincinnati, was also badly injured. She fractured her left hip, broke her right knee, right foot, and several ribs.

But two strangers stopped to help: Christopher Collette and David Sebastian.

Sebastian, of West Harrison, Indiana, was driving home when he noticed the SUV skidding on its side. He pulled over with his 18-year-old son, Cole, to help. After cutting airbags and assisting the SUV driver, he and Collette rushed to Evans’ car.

Sebastian, 47, jumped into the front seat to check if Evans was breathing, while Collette began CPR on Michael. Realizing the back seat was too soft, they carefully placed Michael on the ground and continued chest compressions.

“It was the good Lord above that was running my hands, because I have no trauma experience,” Sebastian said.

Collette, a father of four from Anderson Township, Ohio, did have CPR training from the Boy Scouts and his job with the United States Space Force. He believes being off work that week — for his daughter’s upcoming wedding — placed him on that road at the right moment.

“When I stopped giving CPR and the paramedics took over, he was turning blue,” Collette recalled. “But once I started compressions and breathing for him, some color came back. I felt like we were making a difference.”

Michael’s grandmother, Ashley Meucci, said doctors told the family he had only a 1% chance of surviving the night. She has since launched a GoFundMe to support Michael and Evans.

Meucci met Collette about a week later. “She profusely thanked me, but I thanked her,” Collette said. “It changed my life, too. It gave me a stronger sense of goodness in the world.”

Both Collette and Sebastian remain in contact with the family. Collette even gave Michael a medal of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travel, and the men plan to visit again after Michael leaves the hospital.

“I would hope that goodness prevails no matter what in life,” Collette, 59, said. “That people would step toward danger to do what’s right.”

Sebastian agreed, saying, “I was a tool in God’s toolbox. I could have kept driving, but the good Lord works in mysterious ways.”