Arlay Galindo said she knew something was wrong even before the horrific accident that nearly robbed her 3-year-old son of his life and left him paralyzed from the neck down.
Her brother had picked up her son, Zakk, that February morning in 2012 to deliver him to her mother, so she could go to work.
But Galindo, 28, of Moreno, Calif., was unsettled that day.
"You know how a mother's instinct is," she told ABCNews.com. "The day was not right –- something bad. I had a feeling."
Her son, Zakkary Smith, was strapped into his booster seat behind his uncle when a car driven by an elderly man ran a red light and slammed into their vehicle in the middle of an intersection sending it into a ditch.
"The guy was doing more than 50 miles an hour and the force was so hard on his skull," said Galindo.
Zakk spent months in the hospital and Galindo, who is divorced, quit her job as a pharmacy technician to look after him. He receives disability income to pay for medical care, but now a wheelchair van they have used to transport Zakk to school and medical appointments has broken down, Galindo said.
So Galindo has entered a contest sponsored by the National Mobility Equipment Dealers Association to win a new wheelchair-accessible vehicle. At least four winners will get customized vans.
Zakk is a bright, curious boy whose greatest wish is to visit Griffith Observatory in Hollywood.
"This kid, at the age of 3, knew his planets, knew what order they went in, what size they were," his mom told Babble, which first reported the story.
Without a wheelchair van, that won't happen, said Galindo, who is relying on the help of others to get her son to his kindergarten classes.
WSBTV
