Good Samaritans Help NH Grandmother, Grandkids After Car Fire
MANCHESTER, N.H. (CBS) -- A New Hampshire grandmother and her two young grandchildren are safe after good Samaritans helped them get away from a car fire on Route 93 South.
Bonita Noviello was on her way to a birthday party with her two-year-old and three-month-old granddaughters Saturday.
"Apparently there was a mattress in the road, couldn't get out of the way of it, thought I would go over it and it would come back out from behind, but it didn't, it stayed under there," recalled Noviello.
With the mattress wedged under her car, Noviello said she began to pull over when she saw something that looked like smoke. Quickly realizing it was, she pulled her grandkids out. "And then all of a sudden, people appeared."
One of them was Steven York.
"Another woman... she grabbed the infant who was in the basket, and I grabbed the two-year-old and I just said 'get away from this car' so we all ran away from the car back towards my car which was probably about 150 feet back. And that's how it happened," York told WBZ-TV. "It happened really fast."
Noviello thinks it took about a minute for the car to be fully engulfed.
"The [good Samaritans] are my angels, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you," said Noviello.
York, who even drove the family home, said that there were two other people who jumped into action who deserve credit as well.
"I would hope if I was in the same situation, if I had children, that someone else would stop to do the same thing so I didn't think about it, I sort of just did it," York added.
According to the Manchester Fire Department, a few lanes of the highway were closed as firefighters doused the flames.
"I didn't really react or feel scared in the beginning, I just wanted the kids out. And then when I looked back and saw the car really going yeah, I realized it was pretty scary," said Noviello.
As for her car? "It's gone. Everything I had in my car is gone. My phone, my purse, but I'd do it again, my grandchildren are always first."
