HOUSTON – A group of strangers refused to drive past a horrifying crash using sledge hammers, poles and their bare hands to pull 3 trapped women from a crushed car after it flew off a Beltway 8 HOV overpass and landed upside down on the Southwest Freeway.
The crash happened Wednesday evening. Metro police say the driver was speeding before losing control and striking the HOV barrier. The car flew off the overpass, landing in the middle of the Southwest Freeway. All three women inside, miraculously survived.
KPRC 2 News reporter Corley Peel spoke exclusively with one of the Good Samaritans, Jack Johnson, about the moment he stopped to help.
Johnson said he did not see the car fly off the overpass, but he saw the barrier crumble and then spotted the car in the road.
“I just seen the car just flat rooftop down, smashed in, and I saw a couple of gentlemen that was there,” Johnson said.
Johnson, couldn’t sit back and watch.
“Something just told me just to get out the vehicle and just go see what was going on and just to go help,” he said.
What he found was intense. Three women trapped inside the crushed car, screaming for help.
“All I can just hear is the young girls in there just screaming, yelling, saying, ‘Get me out. Get me out. Help me. Help me.’ And I thought about my little girls,” Johnson said.
Hearing their voices was an immediate relief.
“That was a major relief. I’m glad I didn’t walk up to not hearing any voices at all,” he said.
The group of strangers worked together relentlessly, each taking on a different task to free the women.
“Everyone had their own little task. They had one standing on top of the car and they said they smelled gas. They just pulled off fire extinguishers and everything, just to make sure,” Johnson said.
Once first responders arrived, the three women were safely removed from the vehicle. It is described as a miracle that all three survived.
After it was over, the strangers never exchanged names, only handshakes, before going their separate ways.
Johnson says he hopes to reconnect with the other Good Samaritans and get in touch with the three women to know they are okay.
For Johnson, the moment captured something bigger about the city he calls home.
“Houston comes together. At a time of need, we come together and that made me feel wonderful that everybody would just stop their lives to deal with another person that was in danger,” he said.
Metro Police say the investigation into the crash is ongoing.
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