It was about 7 o’clock in the morning, and Justin Elliott, a Spire service technician in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, was heading into work on state Highway JJ.
Most days he rarely sees a car on the winding rural road, but as he was rounding a sharp corner, suddenly a small pickup truck appeared in his lane, traveling toward him at about 80 miles per hour.
“We looked at each other, he realizes he’s in my lane, so he swerves to miss me,” Elliott said of the close call.
Glancing at his side mirror, Elliott thought he saw one of the pickup’s tires go off the road just as it went out of sight.
There was no hesitation: “I knew I had to turn around,” he said. “My body, my mind, my heart—something told me I needed to go back and check on him to make sure everything was OK.”
When he did, “my stomach sank,” said Elliott. The truck was upside down and completely smashed in, with clouds of steam rising and antifreeze spilling. “I couldn’t imagine how anyone could still be alive in there.”
His heart racing, Elliott got out of his vehicle and ran toward the overturned truck. As he approached, he heard a voice scream, “Help me!” and felt sudden relief. The driver—a teenage boy late to his last day of classes—was still alive.
But he was laying sideways, trapped, bleeding and not able to move.
The windows were the only part of the cab that weren’t smashed. Grabbing gloves from his truck, Elliott was able to inch one of the windows down far enough to get leverage. Then he busted it, careful to break it out, not in. He was able to grab the boy, pull him out of the truck and take him to the side of road.
By this time, another passerby had stopped. She had medical training, and after calling 911, both she and Elliott helped clean up blood from multiple scrapes all over the teen’s body and head and tried to get him comfortable in case of possible broken bones.
“That road isn’t all that busy, so it’s lucky that I went back,” Elliott said. “I don’t know how long it might have been before someone else saw him on the side of the road otherwise.”
Going back and taking action were second nature to Elliott. “We’re first responders,” he said. “Anytime there’s a situation, we’re prepared for what we’re going into. I would hope anybody in the same situation would do exactly what I did.”