Prince George's County leaders on Wednesday honored two local women who came to the rescue of a teenager who survived for eight days after crashing his car into a ravine.

"I never would be able to live with myself if I let somebody lie there on the side of the road bleeding, said Leigh Ann Hess. "He could have died - I just couldn't do it." Hess said she only did the right thing when she stopped to help 18-year-old Julian McCormick. But her four-year-old son Austin sees her differently.

"She's a hero," he said.

County Executive Jack Johnson agreed. He presented Hess and her mother, Donna Lee Loveless, the very first county good samaritan award.

"I hope that this little story will inspire other people to help out when you see somebody on the side of the road, not counting the cost," said Loveless.

It was Hess that spotted McCormick two weeks ago on the side of the Powder Mill Road and stopped.

The teenager had spent eight days alone, suffering from a head wound he sustained when he crashed his car. McCormick told his parents he spent two days upside down and unconscious in his car. It took another two days to cut himself free from his seat belt with a pocketknife. He survived by drinking creek water and eating raw minnows.

It would be another three days before he could muster the strength to climb out the creek bed and ravine. That was where Hess and Loveless found him.

"He's a tough, tough cookie," says Hess. "I could never imagine going through what he went through."

McCormick remains hospitalized. He needs to undergo skin grafts to repair his wounds. But thanks to the good samaritans, the Bowie State University student will eventually be okay.