Truck Driver Stops Out-Of-Control Car in Pennsylvania

March 18, 2004
As other drivers swerved to avoid an out-of-control car and then kept going, Mark Bartholomew noticed that the driver was alone and appeared to be unconscious.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- As other drivers swerved to avoid an out-of-control car and then kept going, Mark Bartholomew noticed that the driver was alone and appeared to be unconscious.

Bartholomew used his truck to block and eventually stop the car. The driver is certain he saved her life.

``He was a lifesaver. I don't have a scratch on me,'' said Elizabeth Driver from her hospital bed Wednesday. ``It's very surprising in this day and age that someone would come to the rescue and risk hurting themselves.''

Driver, 58, had stomach pains before she passed out at the wheel Monday evening, and doctors at Lehigh Valley Hospital are awaiting test results on the cause.

Driver's car was repeatedly bouncing off the Interstate 78 median when Bartholomew noticed the woman's head was bobbing up and down.

His first attempt to race past the car and box it in failed, but the second time he pulled ahead, allowed Driver's front bumper to hit his and gradually slowed to a stop. Another motorist who was a doctor stayed with Driver until an ambulance arrived.

A state trooper initially thought a chain-reaction crash had happened, but said he could not recall a similar act of roadside kindness. ``That was a new one for me,'' Trooper John Carr said.

Bartholomew, 38, a demolition worker for Brandenburg Industrial Services of Bethlehem, said he doesn't worry about the vehicle damage.

``It's a company truck,'' he joked. ``Besides, what's a vehicle compared to a life?''

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