Mom Watched Her Car Roll Downhill Toward Busy Street. Her Toddlers Were Inside. That's When Instinct Kicked In.

Mindy Tran had just backed her Honda into her garage, placed it in park, and left the vehicle to go lock her front door — leaving her 2-year-old twins buckled in the back seat.

Massachusetts mother Mindy Tran jumped into action after she watched her car roll toward traffic with her young children inside. (Image source: WCVB-TV)

Then she saw her car moving.

"I was like, 'What is going on?' And I see my daughter sitting there in the back seat and of course my first instinct is, 'I have to push the car back into the driveway,'" Tran, 22, told WCVB-TV in Boston of the March 6 incident.

It's a steep driveway outside her new apartment in Lawrence, Mass. — one that connects to a busy street.

Image source: WCVB-TV

"My daughters are my everything, my everything, and I don't want to see them in the hospital," she told WCVB, "and I knew at that time it was either mine or theirs."

Image source: WCVB-TV

So Tran jumped into action: She reportedly threw her body in front of the tires to prevent the car from heading into the street.

"I had to use myself as a speed bump to slow it down enough for one of my neighbors to get in and completely stop the car," said Tran, who had just signed a lease for the apartment days earlier.

Neighbors ran to the car, jumped in and stopped it, and got the girls out safely. Firefighters arrived and stabilized Tran's car with wooden blocks and used an airbag to lift the vehicle off her.

Tran's left knee was crushed and her right leg dislocated from her hip; she's been in and out of hospitals and realizes there's a long recovery ahead — but vows she’ll walk again.

Image source: WCVB-TV

"It was all for my kids," Tran told WCVB. "I'm just glad my kids are fine."

Image source: WCVB-TV