Dramatic footage has emerged of the moment a heroic man leapt out of his own car and jumped headfirst in to a moving car to save a driver having a seizure.
The dashcam video, from the Illinois police department, shows the blue car rolling through traffic, through a red light and veering off into a different lane at a busy intersection.
The car then approaches a 4×4, which backs up away from the blue car. The quick-thinking driver, Randy Tompkins, gets out of his vehicle and, noticing something is wrong with the other driver, promptly dives head first through the open passenger-side window of the blue car to help the driver and bring the vehicle to a stop.
You can watch the heroic moment here:
Speaking to the Chicago Tribune, Randy said:
He had his arms up by his chest. I didn’t know if the guy was gonna push the gas, jerk the wheel or whatever, so I waited as long as I could to back up.
Once he got about a half-car length away from me, I parked my truck at an angle and jumped out of my vehicle.
Randy then put two fingers into the driver’s mouth to stop him swallowing his own tongue.
He said:
I did that really fast, and then I stopped the car. I was worried, but I would do that for anybody. It just happened to be I was at the right place at the right time.
A statement from the Dixon police department said:
Officers observed a blue passenger car traveling north on North Galena Avenue and had disobeyed the red traffic signal at that intersection. The car proceeded through the intersection, almost striking several vehicles.
A truck, that was southbound in the 1300 block of North Galena Avenue, had to back up to avoid being struck by the car. The driver of the truck could see the driver of the car and observed that something looked medically wrong. The driver of the truck (later identified as Dixon resident Randy Tompkins) exited his vehicle, ran up to the car and without hesitation jumped into the car through the passenger side window in an attempt to stop it. Tompkins was able to get the car in park just as officers approached the vehicle as well. The driver of the vehicle was found to be having a seizure.
Tompkins and the two officers stood by until Dixon City Fire arrived and transported the driver to KSB Hospital. We want to thank Tompkins for his heroism and for coming to a complete stranger’s aid!
In a later Facebook post from the hero Randy Tompkins himself, he said:
Wow I just saved this guy’s life in the blue car i jumped in his car he was having a seizure at the wheel the cops said they saw me jump in his window like dukes of Hazzard it was crazy I saw him coming at me so I backed up real fast to the side and jumped out and jumped in his car to stop it wow my adrenaline is still going.
Not all heroes wear capes!
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.