Motorists helped heave a medical helicopter off a passenger pinned underneath after it crashed Monday night and landed upside-down in the eastbound lanes of a Sacramento highway, California officials said.
A pilot, a nurse and a paramedic were onboard, including the trapped woman, and all three were critically injured, authorities said.
No one on the ground was hurt, partly because many drivers had seen the helicopter heading toward the highway and slowed down, Sacramento Fire Department Captain Justin Sylvia told reporters at the scene, calling the lack of injuries “mind-blowing” nonetheless.
Motorists described the terrifying sight of the chopper heading toward them as they sat in traffic snarled by ongoing construction. One of them caught video of the “violently shaking” landing gear before the aircraft “just plummeted out of the sky,” witnesses told KCRA-TV.
An instant later they had pivoted from facing possible death, to saving a life.
“At that point there was no truck on scene for extrication tools, just a fire engine,” Sylvia said. “So that captain quickly sequestered the help of multiple civilians to come over and lift this helicopter off of that victim.”
They rushed over without hesitation, hoisted the helicopter and held it aloft for several minutes while paramedics got the woman out from underneath.
The Reach Air Medical Services H130 helicopter manufactured by Airbus crashed just east of downtown Sacramento, moments after dropping a patient off at UC Davis Medical Center. Smoke and steam poured out at first, but the helicopter’s design prevented it from catching fire.
The accident shut down part of State Route 50 for hours while investigators combed the scene and crews cleaned up debris that had scattered across lanes in both directions. The highway had reopened by Tuesday.
With News Wire Services
