Bogalusa resident Misty Michelle Adams, 32, doesn’t look like a hero. No, that’s wrong. She does. Heroes wear disguises. One appears to be a bat, another a spider. Misty’s costume in this life is that of a young woman with Down syndrome.

And she is a hero. If she had not taken quick, appropriate action, her mother, Gena Adams, might very well have died one recent morning.

“I woke up and went to the restroom at about 8:30,” said Gena. “I stood up and called for my husband. I couldn’t remember he went to work. I fell down and the next thing I knew I woke up on a ventilator at BMC (Bogalusa Medical Center). I had died. They told me I was totally non-responsive.”

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Gena has multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis. She is also diabetic. That morning her husband, Richard Adams, was not at home. Only Misty was there to help her mother.

“Mom got dizzy,” she said. “She went down, boom. Mommy, mommy, mommy. She wouldn’t answer me. Oh my God. I had to get my mama out of here.”

As a student at Petal High School in Mississippi, Misty had been taught by the local fire department to call 911 and to perform CPR.

Even in a sudden emergency that involved someone she most dearly loves, she was able to remember what she’d learned and to take action.

“When I saw my mom on the floor in the bathroom I knew,” she said. “I called 911.”

Using a stuffed animal, Misty demonstrated to The Daily News what she did to her mother. She ran her finger across its mouth as if clearing an airway. She tilted its head back. She breathed into its mouth, then pumped its chest and blew into its mouth again.

“I’m more proud of that child than anybody could ever know,” said Gena. “I never thought she would have had it that together. She got all my medicines ready in a bag for the ambulance. And she told them I have MS and diabetes. She got herself dressed, and she rode in the front of the ambulance. She watched them bag me.”

Gena thanks the people in the ambulance, at the hospital and with the police department who helped Misty throughout the trying incident. And she thanks the Petal Fire Department who did not let her daughter’s condition deter them from teaching her the emergency procedures.

“I want them to know that they have saved a life and probably many more that haven’t been reported,” said Gena. “I want them to know how important that is.”

Dr. Roger Casama, who treats both Gena and Misty, agreed.

“Misty is slightly developmentally delayed in learning, and look how well she did,” he exclaimed. “That girl did a marvelous job. Everybody should learn from her.”

Folks could learn more than just CPR, said Gena. Misty is an award-winning artist and a blue-ribbon Special Olympian who helps her mama navigate a computer and loves to design clothes, she said.

And Misty is happy. She radiates love.

“She tells people, “I was born with Down syndrome, but I’m an up syndrome person,’” said Gena.

She’s a lot of things, some very obvious, others not so readily apparent.

“If not for that girl her mother could have died right then and there,” said Casama. “That child is God-given.”

It’s easy to see that Misty is a blessing. But beyond the sweet, smiling, innocent façade, a hero resides �” ready, willing and able to save lives.