'I didn’t have very many minutes left’
By JEFFREY SIMPSON Staff Reporter | 12:48 PM
Sadie Harris never got a chance to say thanks to the people who helped save her life this weekend.
The nursery school teacher didn’t have time to do anything Friday night when the family car started rolling backward toward her in the driveway of her Cole Harbour Road home.
Ms. Harris, 67, said she instinctively put her hands in front of her in an ill-conceived attempt to push the Saturn away, but soon found herself wedged underneath the vehicle next to the muffler.
"I couldn’t breathe," Ms. Harris said in an interview Sunday.
No sooner had her husband, Melvin, 78, rushed over to help her than a group of young people on motorcycles pulled up.
"I heard one of them say, ‘Oh my God! Get the car off her!’ " Ms. Harris said.
They lifted the car while Mr. Harris drove it forward. The scary situation was over within minutes, but Ms. Harris believes it wasn’t a second too soon.
"I know they saved my life," she said. "I didn’t have very many minutes left."
She was taken to the hospital with scrapes and bruises but no broken bones — the tires had missed her.
"I am very sore," she said.
"I’m finding new bruises every time I look at myself."
The three or four motorcyclists disappeared from the scene as suddenly as they had arrived. Ms. Harris wants an opportunity to show them her appreciation and is hoping they’ll pay her another visit.
"I’d love to be able to find out who they were so I could at least say thank you," she said.
As for why the car started moving without anyone inside, she said, she had just parked and forgotten to shift it out of drive, she said. The mechanism that prevents removal of the keys while the car is in drive does not work.
"It was a stupid thing to do, that’s for sure," she said. "I can’t believe I did this."
