Trucker rescues baby and its mother from dump truck that overturned and caught fire in Maryland on Monday.
The accident happened on April 8th in Prince George’s County, Maryland on Route 4.
According to ABC 7, a dump truck was traveling on the roadway when it blew a tire, causing it to overturn and catch fire. An SUV then flipped trying to avoid the dump truck, and that’s when truck driver William Amshoff saw what was going on and stopped his flatbed to see if he could help.
“I could hear the driver of the dump truck hollering, ‘Help me!’ So, I took my fire extinguisher, went in, found her laying on the ground with just her head and shoulders out of the cab of her truck with her baby on her chest,” Amshoff said.
Amshoff says he chose to help the child first, and then go back for the mother.
“So I told her ‘Ma’am, give me the baby.’ So I took the child from her arms, sat him down in a safe place, and started hollering for somebody to get him,” he said.
Bishop John Adonteng Boateng of Divine Word International Ministries in Woodbridge then held the child until first responders could arrive while Amshoff went back to the truck to pull the mother from the wreckage.
“He was crying ‘mommy, mommy,’ so I took him away from there and I told him ‘your Mommy’s fine.’ All his clothes were burned, his legs were burned, his back was burned also,” said Boateng to ABC 7.
“He was asking me if he was going to die and he was crying very bitterly seeking for the mother but the mother was at the time really, really burned.”
The mother, child, and person in the SUV were all transported to the hospital. Their conditions are not known.
“I’ve got blisters on my fingers. You can’t see it now, but I’ve got blisters on my arms,” Amshoff said of the rescue.
The driver says that he hopes that the mother and child will both recover from their ordeal. During an interview about the rescue, Amshoff broke into tears and said “my whole thought process during that was after seeing the child there, getting the mother out so that they, once they are healed, they can be a family again and not just a child without a mother.”
The reason for the crash has not been released.