A Fort McMurray woman is thankful four young men were there to help the night she was in medical distress on the highway and could no longer drive.

Cynthia Simpson was driving from Edmonton to Fort McMurray on Sunday. About 200 kilometres into her drive she started to feel a pain in her side. She knew immediately it was a kidney stone attack.

Simpson, 49, had been to the doctor about a month before for the same kind of pain. Every time the kidney stone shifts, it causes pain until it settles.

She thought she would be able to keep driving, but after another 100 kilometres it became "excruciating" and she had to pull over at a rest stop on Highway 63.

"It's actually worse than labour pain," said Simpson, a mother and grandmother.

She pulled over at a rest stop around 10 p.m. and parked beside the only other car that was there. She got out to ask for help.

"I could barely move at that time and I was in a lot of distress."

She could tell she startled the young men, and after asking for help she went back to her car.

Two of the men jumped out to help. They drove Simpson and her car to the hospital in Fort McMurray, about 100 kilometres away.

Ram Marcaida, 23, said he and his friends were driving back from a volleyball tournament at the time. They had pulled over because the driver wanted to rest for a few minutes.

Marcaida said he was hesitant when Simpson knocked on the window and asked for help.

"We didn't know if she's lying or something like that. But we saw her face, that she's really in pain."

Cynthia Simpson, 49, says the four men who stopped to help her are 'heroes.' (Jamie Malbeuf/CBC)

Jhudbien Abuda, 17, and Amiel Panganiban got in Simpson's car.

"I saw her really in pain," said Panganiban, 18. "We want to make sure that she's going to be OK."

The men took Simpson to the hospital in Fort McMurray and stayed with her until she was admitted.

Marcaida went along in the other car with Edjustin Silva, 24.

"They got me water," Simpson said. "One was rubbing my back. And I was just overwhelmed, but I was in so much pain."

The men left the hospital, and when Simpson was discharged around 4:30 a.m. she couldn't remember their names.

"I just wanted to hug them and thank them," she said. "They could've gone home. But they all stayed with me until I went in to go see the doctor."

With no contact information or names, Simpson turned to Facebook to try to find them.

She was in contact with them in a few hours and had the chance to thank in person the men she called her "heroes."

Her kidney stone hasn't passed.