Road Warrior: Finding Good Sam on Tampa Avenue

Road Warrior is an occassional dispatch from the streets, freeways, rail lines and sidewalks of Southern California, as reported by Times staffers and other Bottleneck Blog contributors.

Over at the Los Angeles Police Department's Valley Traffic division, it was just "a regular traffic collision." No one dead or dying. Not a hit and run. Not even a DUI, the officer explained.

It looked anything but regular to me. As I was driving south on Tampa Avenue in Reseda at 7:30 this morning, I saw a terrifying crash in which a car hit a lightpole and flipped on its side. The car was smoking, windshield and windows smashed, wheels spinning. But it was what happened next that really struck me. A young man who saw the crash, ran over, reached into the broken driver's side window and gingerly pulled the driver out out of the car. He carried him in his arms, like a baby, and walked around the car before gently placing the driver on the ground, leaning on a pole. He stayed with the driver and appeared to be speaking to him.

Maybe it was just a regular traffic collision. And maybe this just a regular Good Samaritan.

-Beth Shuster, Times Education Editor

What do you think? Some Bottleneck Blog posters worry that our Good Sam might be himself in legal jeopardy. Hit COMMENT and join the discussion!

Comments

[Marco]

Tom A. don't be a cynic, its not good for your health. Don't ruin a perfectly nice story about a good deed with your paranoia.

Have you never heard of the Good Samaritan Law. If you do not over reach your medical skills (like trying to perform a tracheotomy with a pen knife) then a the first person on the scene cannot be held liable for any basic first aid.

[Tom A.]

And of course, if the driver winds up paralyzed or worse as a result of being moved by someone who isn't a trained EMT, he/his family will sue the good samaritan and his family for all they're worth and then some. Isn't America great?