Hero siblings lift overturned SUV from roadside ditch, save couple and baby

TAMPA (FOX 13) - In the moments after Aaron Allen rushed to help those inside an overturned vehicle along Interstate 75, his mind went straight to his 4-month old daughter.

“There was actually a mother, a father, and an 11-day-old baby inside,” Allen recalled. “I just immediately thought about my daughter and what I would do if I were in that situation.”

It was Friday morning and Allen and his sister, Jolisa Jones -- who both work for Ashley Furniture -- were driving a delivery truck northbound along I-75. They say a white Chrysler side-swiped the couple’s Toyota RAV4 near the Pasco-Hillsborough line, north of Tampa.

“The car pretty much just blind-sided them, and I’m pretty sure they were just as scared, and I was shocked,” Allen said. “The first thing I could do was to spring into action.”

The siblings rushed toward the RAV4, which had overturned in a watery ditch.

“I saw that water was seeping into the car, where it was turned upside down,” Allen said. “We tried to break the windows, but that didn’t work. So the only thing I could think of was to flip the car over. So I told my sister to help me so we could flip it over to its side. So what happened is after we flipped it over to the side, I took my shirt off and wrapped it around my fist and I used my fist to break the windshield off.”

The siblings saved the occupants, but they'll have the scars to remember it.

“As my fist was coming out of the windshield, it hooked the glass and it pulled my skin all the way back in a big chunk,” he said. “The glass tore into my tendons in my arm.”

Jones suffered injuries to her fingers. But Allen says he just did what anyone should have done.

"If I was in that situation, I would want someone to come to my rescue, honestly. I would want someone to help me."

Neither the parents nor the baby in the car were injured, but the baby was taken to the hospital as a precaution.

The Florida Highway Patrol says the driver of the car that hit the couple's SUV fled the scene. Witnesses say it looked like a white Chrysler 300.