By Rick Cordes
C-N Correspondent
THREE RIVERS — What started on October 20 as a routine morning of lawn mowing duties turned suddenly intense when John Gavin, owner of Gavin Lawn Care, heard an alarming noise.
“I was in the front yard, almost finished,” Gavin recalls. “I heard a loud crash.”
Gavin glanced immediately towards the street. “I looked up and a car was flipping through the air,” Gavin said.
After its brief flight, the car came to rest on the pavement, settling onto its driver’s side in the roadway just beyond Gavin’s truck and trailer.
“I jumped off the mover and ran over there,” Gavin said. “Gas was pouring everywhere.”
Gavin saw a lone occupant in the car. “She said there was smoke inside,” Gavin remembers.
Fearful of a fire or explosion, Gavin acted quickly.
“I kicked in the windshield and pulled her out,” Gavin said. “I got her over to the sidewalk. It looked like she was alright.”
Miraculously, the young woman driver was not hurt save for a minor cut on her hand and another on her foot. Gavin was unharmed and doesn’t view his actions as heroic. “Anybody would do the same thing,” he said. He reports that Three Rivers Police and Fire Rescue personnel arrived on scene promptly.
Certainly, what Gavin did was courageous, dangerous, and potentially life-saving. The event, however was disturbing. How does a car launch into the air?
Reconstructing the accident, Three Rivers Police report that the driver “clipped the back of the trailer and (that) sent her into the air.” In effect, the trailer’s loading ramp became a launch pad for the car.
Given the location of the incident—just south of the intersection of North Douglas Avenue and Arnold Street, the car, traveling north on Douglas, had enough speed (just a few feet from a stop sign) to push it skyward.
The car’s driver was cited by Three Rivers Police for careless, negligent operation.
