Macy's Employee Jumps Into Action When Car Crashes Into Newark Store
NEWARK (CBS SF) -- A high school student is being called a hero for his quick reaction after a car drove into the Macy's department store he works at in Newark.
Just before 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, a 63-year-old woman experienced some kind of medical emergency while behind the wheel, lost control of her Honda Fit, and rammed it all the way into the men's cologne area of the Macy's store at Newpark Mall.
Mohammad Khushdell said he couldn't get the scene out of his mind of the car plowing through the store, dragging a man some 80 feet.
"All you would hear for five to six seconds straight was glass breaking, things cracking, wood breaking, carpet ripping," said Khushdell. "It was bad."
The senior at James Logan High School in Union City has been working at Macy's for five months.
Khushdell said everyone was frozen and stunned at first, and so he leapt into action and discovered the man who had been dragged. "There was, like, a dent right here, and then there was a dent in the windshield … He was basically leaning against it and it head was bleeding."
Meanwhile Khushdell said there were still people in the car, and there was smoke coming out of it. "I just went inside and took the kids out, the female passenger and driver, I took them out as well. I took them aside and told them to hang out over there."
The man dragged into the store had been actually hit outside the store. He ended up in the hospital in critical condition with a head injury.
Out of respect for the victims, he asked people to put away their cellphone cameras. Later on his Instagram feed he posted a message asking for prayers for the victims, and saying he "wasn't going to be a bystander" when the incident happened.
Khushdell seems ambivalent his heroic deeds. "I did what everybody should've done so, I mean, maybe to some I'm a hero. But to me I did what I had to do."