Child Pulls Family From Car Crash Due To GTA Playing

While video games have been generally vilified by politicians, teachers and parents they have been recognized by many as having positive benefits beyond simple entertainment. Games have been used to improve eye-hand coordination, thus improving the abilities of surgeons and making complicated surgical procedures less risky; they can be used to aid in rehabilitation of accident victims or wounded soldiers; they can also be used to teach. In a somewhat bizarre story, one of the most frequently attacked games in history has done some good by motivating a life saving effort on the part of a young person.

On a trip to visit relatives in Diamond, US the Norris family’s Jeep Grand Cherokee drifted off the road, hit the guardrail and flipped four times before coming to rest in a ditch, upside down. The back window was smashed and eleven year-old Audrey Plique pulled her siblings and parents out through it. “She just knew, from playing ‘Grand Theft Auto.’ She saw on there that when a car rolls over, it can blow up. She knew that could happen to us,” said her mother, Karen Norris.

While this is definitely a display of heroics on the part of young Plique, it unfortunately isn’t quite as wonderful as it might seem. To the best of my knowledge, cars are much more stable than you see on television and in video games. It’s probably unlikely the car would have exploded or caught fire, and much more likely that she would have aggravated a serious injury by moving the accident victims.