Six year old Brandon Bennett has more brains and guts than you and me.

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review comes a story of love triumphing over death.

A 6-year-old lifesaver

Brandon Bennett's mom and grandma are proud enough that the 6-year-old graduated from kindergarten last week as the "most improved student."

But they'll have one more reason to celebrate today: Brandon will be certified as a hero.

The National Emergency Numbers Association will honor Brandon as the 2006 National 911 Hero for the quick thinking that saved his grandmother's life.

The association, based in Arlington, Va., lobbies nationwide for technologically enhanced and universal telephone emergency numbers.

Members will be at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, this week for the group's 25th annual convention and trade show.

Brandon was nominated by Allegheny County 911 operators who heard a tape of the call he made May 23, reporting his grandmother was unconscious. Doctors said later that her blood sugar had dropped dangerously low.

At the ceremony, Brandon, of Penn Hills, will be awarded a medal.

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato will proclaim today as "Brandon Bennett Day."

"I'm so excited," said Kathy Dye, Brandon's grandmother. "He definitely deserves it."

Dye, who lives four doors down from the boy who calls her "Luvbug," survived an advanced case of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in the 1980s.
Radiation and chemotherapy treatments caused her body to overproduce insulin. At any time, Dye said, she can slip into a coma.

For five years, she's had her medical-alert dog, Luna, a Samoyed-German Shepherd mix, watching over her. But on May 23, Brandon was Dye's guardian angel.

Dye was baby-sitting and had given Brandon and his two younger brothers baths. As the tub was draining, Luna entered the bathroom in search of a drink. Her tail hit the door, and she locked herself in.

At the same time, Dye was watching TV in the living room, and the boys were watching a movie in her bedroom.

"I thought I was fine, because Luna always tells me when I'm going to go into a coma," Dye said.

But the next thing Dye remembers, paramedics were in her house, testing her blood sugar. It was 91 -- too high, Dye thought fuzzily, for her to be feeling this way.

It was only after she regained full consciousness that she learned how Brandon saved her life.

With Luna trapped in the bathroom, frantically chewing the door frame apart trying to help Dye, Brandon dialed 911. While he waited for paramedics, Brandon found Dye's glucose in the refrigerator and gave her a shot. (Emphasis mine.)

WOW!!! Read that paragraph again, kiddies!

Only a week before, Dye and his mom, Misty Revino, had sat him down and explained he was big enough to help out if "Luvbug" ever got so sick she couldn't get up.

"The thing that gets me is that he had to make the shot," Dye said. "There's fluid in a needle, and you have to stick it in a bottle, shoot the fluid in there, shake it up until the glucose pill dissolves, draw the fluid back out, get the air out of it and then stick it in. And he got all the glucose out. Even I can't do that."

Revino said she, too, was stunned to learn her young son had saved his grandmother's life.

"He just called me at work and said, 'Mommy, I couldn't wake Luvbug up, so I gave her a shot and called 911. She's OK now,'" Revino said. "I was in shock. I handed the phone to my boss because I didn't think I was hearing this correctly, but she said no, it was right."

Brandon, who is looking forward to wearing a new suit for the ceremony, said Sunday that he was born to help his Luvbug.

Amen to that, Son.

Brandon and Dye have shared a special bond since his birth, Revino said.
Dye said it might have something to do with the wish she made as she was struggling to overcome cancer.

"My dream, as I was going through chemotherapy, was to live to see my children grown and my first grandchild," Dye said. "He's my first. And when he was really tiny, he would tell me that God made him just for me.

"Well, I guess he did make him just for me."