SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – A Good Samaritan risked his life to save a stranger’s.
RJ was critically injured in a crash when he stopped Tuesday to help two women on the side of Northwestern Highway.
ORIGINAL STORY: 2 pedestrians hit by car on Northwestern Highway in Southfield
Doctors said he will have to learn how to walk again.
“I saw him laying there, legs broken, a lot of pain,” said his fiancée, Tiara Kendrick.
Kendrick had rushed from work and found RJ lying on the shoulder of Northwestern Highway.
“He’s been telling everyone he was just trying to help,” Kendrick recalled. “If he had know what would happen, I may have done things differently. He’s a very good person. This is definitely breaking his spirit.”
RJ was on his way to pick up his 4-month-old daughter and simply stopped to help two women who had just been in a fender-bender.
He was helping when another driver tried to squeeze by on the shoulder, striking RJ and one of the women. His quick thinking may have saved the other woman’s life.
“He was able to help because she was pushed out of the way. She wasn’t hit,” Kendrick said. “There is a possibility if he wasn’t there, she would not have made it.”
RJ was critically injured and remains in the ICU following surgery. He is expected to spend weeks in the hospital and require months of painful physical therapy. The family’s home will have to be retrofitted with a ramp and the medical bills are piling up.
A GoFundMe account has been set up for the family. You can donate here.
“Any help that anyone can give us would be amazing, so we can stay afloat while he gets healthy,” Kendrick concluded.
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