A man used his own car to ram a runaway SUV to a stop on a busy freeway, after watching the driver’s eyes roll back during a medical emergency – with a child still strapped inside.
The white SUV was heading south on I-5 near Fife, Washington, when the driver suffered a medical emergency at the wheel.
Witnesses said she had hit another vehicle and was striking the concrete divider repeatedly, all with a young boy strapped into a car seat in the back.
Paul Jackson, of nearby Roy, saw the vehicle cut across three lanes – and knew something was gravely wrong.
“I saw the car bouncing on the wall,” he told Fox 13 Seattle.
He pulled his car closer and looked across at the driver. “Her face was up, out of it, eyes rolled into the back of her head,” Jackson said. The boy in the back seat, he said, was terrified.
So, Jackson heroically used his own car – a Kia Forte – to bring the SUV to a stop.
“I positioned my back tire,” he said. “I got her in front, and just kind of like pushed her on over.” Video showed the moment he squeezed the SUV to a halt against the divider.
“I didn’t want anything to go south, just slowly glided her to a stop and it worked,” he said.
Jackson then got out, helped put the SUV in park, got the child to safety before staying with the driver until officers and EMTs arrived. Other motorists stopped to help too, and thankfully the driver and child were not seriously hurt.
“It was something I didn’t really even think about. I just did it,” Jackson said. “Somebody had to do something.”
His car came away with a mark on the fender. Jackson’s family has started an online fundraiser to help with the repairs. But his own take on the damage was simpler: “I like to tell people it will buff out.”
You can donate to Jackson’s repair fundraiser here.
