On Jan. 19, a 70-year-old woman in Newark, Delaware, was seriously injured when she forgot to put her SUV in park and became trapped under the vehicle after stepping out.
The 2016 Hyundai Santa Fe rolled over the woman, knocking her down against the asphalt, trapping her leg in the wheel well and pinning one of her arms underneath the tire.
Kyle Stant, a neighbor, quickly arrived on the scene and attempted to lift the vehicle with a jack — but it wasn’t big enough.
“The jack was not big enough to lift her car,” Stant told WPVI-TV in Philadelphia. “She was behind the front left tire to where I found her laying, and I did everything in my power right from there to get her out and to make sure she was safe to — nothing else worse would happen.”
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“She says, ‘Kyle, please help me, don’t leave me,’ and I told her, ‘I’m not going to leave you. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to get you out.’
“At that moment five county cops show up. I tell them, ‘I need your help,’ and myself and four county cops, we lift the car. The fifth cop pulls her out.”
Once the woman was safely removed, she was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. She was listed in stable condition and was expected to make a full recovery.
The rescue was a new one for local cops as well.
“I’ve been on six years and I can honestly say that this is the first time that I have had to do something like this,” said Officer Lewis Echevarria of the New Castle County Police Department.
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“She was just frantic,” said Officer Nicholas Manucci, the first officer on the scene. “I was trying to calm her down. I told her she was going to be fine. Once EMS got there, she was in good hands.
“These guys did the heavy lifting, and once the car came up, I dragged the elderly woman out to safety.”
Bodycam footage shared on the New Castle County Police Facebook page showed the quick work the team made of removing the poor woman.
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“The quick thinking and physical actions of the bystander and the officers from the Division of Police played a major role in this patient being protected from further injury, and possibly death,” Mark R. Logemann, chief of the New Castle County Emergency Medical Services Division, said in a post shared by the department.
“The Emergency Medical Services Division values the close working relationship we share with our law enforcement partners in our combined mission to serve the citizens of New Castle County,” he said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
