Samaritans Rush To Lift Car off Victims Trapped Underneath on Sidewalk
A pickup truck and a sedan were traveling south in Washington, D.C., between 9th Street and New York Avenue when the truck made a wide turn and accidentally hit the sedan. The sedan went flying into a sidewalk, hitting four pedestrians.
The passengers inside the vehicle managed to get out of the car, but two pedestrians remained pinned underneath.
Nearly 14 nearby good Samaritans raced over to the scene of the crash and began trying to lift the car off of them.
A cab driver named Ephrem Engdashet had just gotten into his car which was steps away from the accident when witnesses began asking him to call 911.
“I was, like, shocked,” Engdashet said. “I was in my car, you know, just for maybe 10, 15 seconds, then they were asking like ‘Help, help, help.’”
He quickly called 911 but ran over to help before an operator answered.
Another good Samaritan Dio King was working nearby when he heard the loud crash, and quickly raced over.
The group quickly worked to move the car together, lifting it up and pushing it off of the pedestrians.
“Thirteen or 14 of us ran over and just picked up the car and we just pulled it off of them, pulled it to the side,” King said.
The dramatic rescue was caught on camera thanks to Engdashet’s dash cam in the taxi.
The woman in the car recalled the accident, thankful that there were enough people to free the trapped pedestrians.
“I’m six months pregnant, we ran over people–two women were stuck under the car,” she said. “I’m glad there were enough people out here to physically lift the car to get them from under it.”
Thanks to the quick actions of many witnesses, the women survived. The four pedestrians were taken to the hospital with critical, but not life-threatening, injuries.
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