Good Samaritans Save Driver Trapped In Burning Car
NORTON (CBS) - Good Samaritans rushed to save a woman trapped in a burning car on I-495 Monday night. Witnesses say it looked like something out of a movie.
The 25-year-old woman, Avery Earle, crashed into a guardrail and then went airborne. Earle was trapped inside the car and unconscious.
That is when Mike Machnik stopped to help. "I wanted to see if she was OK and when I saw that she was trapped inside the car and the seat belt was stuck, I tried to do what I could," Machnik says. "What was going through my mind was that this young lady is going to die if I can't get her out of the car and I didn't want that to happen."
Another driver stopped to help and cut Earle's seat belt off with a knife. "Nothing seemed to be helping until the other motorist came up and asked if I needed help and he had a knife on him and he cut the seat belt," Machnik says.
The men got her out just as the flames started to spread from the engine. Earle survived and is recovering at Rhode Island Hospital.
Machnik does not think of himself as a hero. "I just hope someone else would do the same for me," Machnik says.
The man with the knife who cut the seat belt off of Earle is still unknown but Machnik says he wants to meet him because he is equally responsible for saving Earle's life.