‘I’m just a man. I don’t wear a cape’: Witness who extricated car crash victim praised for heroism

BEAVER COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — A car crash in Beaver on Sunday evening left one woman in critical condition and two witnesses with enthusiasm to share the importance of safety. A 35-year-old woman driving a Kia and pulling a small utility trailer was traveling in the southbound lanes of an uphill section on I-15 at milepost 126, seven miles south of the I-70 interchange near Sulphurdale. According to the Utah Highway Patrol (UHP), she was traveling faster than the semi truck that she was following, resulting in a crash at 6:15 p.m. that left her in critical condition. She was later airlifted to the hospital. Photo Courtesy: Eric Nelson Eric Nelson was driving from Colorado back to California with his daughter when they saw the horrific crash that had just occurred. Nelson started seeing the backup from a crash and didn't hesitate to jump into action. "I told my daughter, I said, 'Don't look because this could be really bad," Eric recalled. "I saw the woman was still sitting in the driver's seat of the car, which miraculously was the only thing that was still intact. That was it. So I got out, and we just did what we could." Eric later described, "When I saw the condition of the car, there was a second where I was like, I don't know if I have the strength for this, but then I thought, well, I'm going to have to find it from somewhere." After seeing the engine on fire, Eric said he took his shirt off to try to pat out the flames. By the time he realized the fire had grown too large, another man had gotten out of his car and walked up, asking how he could help. "I just told him, 'Hey, we've got to get her out of here," he continued. "This can get out of control really quickly.' I work in motorsports for a living, so I've seen a lot of things in my life." According to Eric, he was able to force the driver's door open and found the driver breathing but unconscious and spasming. To make matters worse, her legs were reportedly "stiff as a board" and stuck in the footwell. Photo Courtesy: Eric Nelson Fortunately, Eric was able to work with the other man to successfully guide her out of the seat, partly because she was not wearing her seatbelt, he said. "We carried her over to the shoulder of the center divider, which I felt like was probably a reasonable distance... She was covered in blood." "I lost all sense of time," he continued. He described waiting "an eternity" for UHP and paramedics to arrive, during which time he and the other man ensured she was breathing and stood by to perform CPR if necessary. After the traumatic event, Eric said he'll cope by letting the feelings come to him. "I had people tell me you're a hero, but I said, 'I don't honestly know.' I don't want to say I don't like that term, but I'm just I'm a human being. I don't wear a cape." "It kind of brought me to tears at the end of it to see so many different types of people that had contributed to helping, and that I would just hope that we can all learn to not have to have a tragic event like this to be the lowest common denominator that brings us together. Just remember that people are all people and that we need to treat each other well, regardless of what our backgrounds are," he continued. His daughter, Zia, said this is not the first time he has responded quickly to accidents. "When he sees things, he just wants to fix them, and he's he is usually successful." Zia said that while her dad was with the crash victim, she was helping out by clearing debris from the roadway and looking for cats that had escaped from the victim's car into the desert across I-15. Still, she described the experience as beneficial, as she feels closer to humanity. ABC4.com has reached out to confirm the victim's status, which is reportedly serious but not life-threatening.