Dover Airman pulls mom, boy from burning car

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Brian Stives
  • 436th Air Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (AFPN) --  An Airman here saved the lives of a woman and her 9-year-old son after she lost control of her car near Millsboro recently. The car ran off the road, hit a tree, overturned in a ditch and caught fire.

Senior Airman Marcus Hyatt, of the 436th Medical Support Squadron, and his friend NaKisha Collins were on their way to pick up a car before Airman Hyatt left for Tennessee to surprise his mother. Ms. Collins took a different route than she normally does, and Airman Hyatt was settling in the passenger seat to fall asleep.

“I felt the car stop, and I asked her what was wrong,” he said. “She said that she thought she saw a car in the ditch on fire.”

They found an overturned Volkswagen Jetta.

“Flames were coming up from under the hood, and the car was flipped on its side. I stood there a minute, frozen in shock,” Airman Hyatt said.

He called 911, and the dispatcher asked him if he could hear anyone calling for help or if he could see if anyone was inside the car.

“As I approached the car, I could see a lady hanging out the front passenger window,” he said. “It still wasn’t registering in my mind, and as I looked around I didn't see anyone that could help her.”

That is when he realized he was the only person capable of saving the woman.

“All of a sudden I ran over and started trying to pull her out of the window,” Airman Hyatt said. “But her hand was stuck in the door, and I couldn’t get her out.”

While trying to get the woman out through the window, Airman Hyatt said he glanced into the back seat of the vehicle and saw her son.

“I pulled him out the back window and set him on the ground and told him to run up the hill to my friend,” Airman Hyatt said. “But he kept asking about his mommy and if she was going to be all right.”

After convincing the boy to go to his friend, Airman Hyatt turned his attention back toward the boy’s mother.

“I struggled with her for what seemed like hours, but it was probably just about three or four minutes,” Airman Hyatt said. “She kept saying, ‘Get my son out. Get my son out,’ and I said, ‘Ma’am, I got your son out, but we have to get away from this car before it blows up.’”

After freeing the woman, Airman Hyatt said he figured the hardest part was over; however, the woman weighed more than him, and he struggled up the ditch.

“Every time I got her on her feet to get away from the car, she would fall and take me down with her,” Airman Hyatt said. “I kept telling her that we have to get away, because in the movies, the cars always blow up.”

Two other passing motorists stopped and helped pull them out of the ditch and onto the roadway.

“It’s crazy. It still just seems like a dream. (Ms. Collins) never goes down that road. She always goes another way, but for some reason she went down that road. I just keep saying, ‘the Lord is good,’ because I should have never been on that road. I’m just thankful that the Lord was watching over all of us that night.”