A man is being praised for his quick thinking and willingness to help rescue car crash victims on Monday in Gary, Indiana.
Law enforcement officers said the car wreck happened New Years Day around 3:40 a.m. on a little-used road in the area, the Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday.
Authorities spent two hours looking for the car once a woman called 911 and told dispatchers she and another woman were trapped in the vehicle. However, their phone died soon after the call was made.
To make matters worse, the car had flipped over during the wreck.
“They’re looking for a vehicle that’s down in the marsh for a while now. They can’t find it,” an official is heard saying in an audio recording pertaining to the incident.
One of the women was able to escape the vehicle through a broken window. It was not long before Greg Zellers, who works as a mechanic, came upon the scene and knew he had to help.
The woman who managed to get out of the vehicle flagged him down and took him to the crash site that was about 50 yards away from the road.
“She had told me that they were in an accident and their car was over here on its top and one of her friends was stuck in it,” he told ABC 7.
According to the mechanic, the car’s lights were not visible to anyone passing by. He made contact with officials, directed them to the site, and also stayed at the scene for a while until it was time for him to get to work.
Zeller said the woman who was still in the car had her legs pinned underneath the steering wheel, and the victim reportedly later told officers she could not feel her legs before she was airlifted to a hospital.
“I would like to convey my sincere appreciation for the passerby and two officers who found the car and all first responders involved in this rescue. Their diligence helped to prevent what could have been a tragedy,” Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. said in a social media post on Monday.
A similar instance happened in December 2020 when a good Samaritan and first responders rescued a family after their car flipped and landed upside down in a Florida canal, according to Breitbart News.
