A propane truck driver came to the rescue of two sisters trapped in a car that flipped upside down in a ditch in Michigan on Tuesday.
Eighteen year old Ellisa Bertrand and her fourteen year old sister Ryley Beadle were going out for Chinese food in Harrison when they hit a patch of ice, sending their car crashing off the road into a ditch. The girls survived the crash, but were trapped hanging upside down inside the vehicle.
Propane truck driver Jason Croutch, 45, passed the scene of the crash and stopped when he saw someone moving in the crashed car.
After dialing 911, Croutch grabbed a wrench and waded into the ditch, intending to break open a window to free the girls. He said that he somehow managed to open one of the car doors: “I cannot explain it. I told their mom that I don’t know how I got the door opened, but it seemed to open.”
Rescue crews soon arrived on scene.
The girls suffered only minor injuries, but Clare County Sheriff John Wilson said that the situation could have been much worse if Croutch hadn’t stopped to help: “If they would have been hung up or knocked unconscious, I’ve seen accidents where there’s been positional asphyxiation where they were still in their seat belts and actually died because of asphyxiation and you know, you never know.”
Croutch, a father of six, said that he just did what he hoped someone else would do for his own children.
Sources:
ABC 12