Isabelle Halberstam
Oct 18, 2026
On the morning of August 31st, the local Philadelphia community helped rescue a 44-year-old woman from under a car. She is now in stable condition, but a few more seconds under the vehicle would have resulted in a much more dire outcome.
On the morning of August 31st, local Philadelphians may say that their faith in humanity was restored.
A 44-year-old woman on an e-bike was run over by a Volkswagen Beetle near Prospect Park.(1) The driver was making a right turn when the biker whooshed by, blindsiding the car. The driver immediately got out of the car to assess the damage and found the woman’s legs sticking out from beneath his Beetle. The car weighed nearly two thousand pounds; how was he going to free her? That’s where neighbors came in.
Multiple shop owners heard the woman’s cries and rushed out onto the street to help. According to The Washington Post (article linked below), all they could make out was, “Get this car off of me!” Chrissy Vollmer, the owner of a sign shop near the crash site, immediately dialed 911. But that wasn’t all.
Vollmer gathered with other bystanders as they tried to help the woman. More shop owners stepped outside, and they began to try to lift the car. A two-thousand-pound car versus a small group of adults was a seriously unequal matchup.
“1.. 2.. 3!” counted off Vollmer, according to The Washington Post (article linked below). They were able to lift the car just enough for the woman to be pulled from underneath. The woman was freed within a minute of the crash! Just then, police arrived on the scene, and the woman was transferred to the local hospital. She remained in stable condition and is in recovery. Just a few more seconds under the car, and things would have turned out much differently.
Videos of the rescue blew up on social media, and Vollmer and the group are receiving praise to no end. According to The Washington Post (article linked below), “It’s kind of normal if someone’s in need of help,” Vollmer said, surprised at the attention, “you want to help them.”
The police officer handling the case, Chief David Madonna, said that in all of his years as an officer, he had never witnessed people mobilizing to help as they did on this Monday morning. According to the Washington Post (article linked below), Madonna exclaimed, “That is humanity at its finest.”
(1) www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2026/09/06/pennsylvania-bystanders-lift-car-save-trapped-woman/
This article was adapted from The Washington Post’s “These bystanders lifted a car to save a woman who was trapped underneath” by Kyle Melnick.
Melnick, Kyle. “These Bystanders Lifted a Car to Save a Woman Who Was Trapped Underneath.” The Washington Post, 6 September 2026, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2026/09/06/pennsylvania-bystanders-lift-car-save-trapped-woman/.