A 4-year-old boy who was “clinically decapitated” in a recent car accident in Idaho survived after a rescuer resisted the urge to pick up and cradle the screaming child and instead held his head in place for a half-hour, most likely saving his life, his mother and the rescuer said.

The story of the boy, Killian Gonzalez, who endured one of the worst traumatic injuries that can affect small children in car crashes but escaped with his life through the actions of a good Samaritan, unfolded on State Highway 51, a two-lane road slicked by a hailstorm at the time.

Killian’s mother, Brandy Gonzalez, said she was driving home to Nevada after attending a party in Idaho to celebrate the boy’s birthday when her car skidded and went into a lane of oncoming traffic, colliding with another vehicle.

Pinned in the wreckage and with broken bones, she tried to turn to reach her son, who was strapped into a booster-type car seat in the back.