14 DAY TRIAL // A New York man turned into a hero after he managed to stop a runaway car from rolling into traffic and saved the three children who were inside the vehicle.
David Cincotta was at a gas station in North Babylon, New York, for a fill-up last month when he noticed something unusual: a car rolling backward. In just a few seconds he jumped in the car and put on the brake before the vehicle rolled onto the busy street.
Had it not been for Cincotta, the car would surely have been hit by the upcoming traffic, and who knows what would have happened to the three young girls who were sitting on the back seat of the sedan.
According to Yahoo News, the incident happened on April 5 at the Lukoil gas station on the corner of Bay Shore Road and Commack Road. Cincotta says he rarely fills up there, but this day was an exception.
Surveillance cameras caught the moment when the white car pulled up to a gas station pump in Deer Park and then began to roll backward. A female – the owner of the car – chased after it, but was knocked to the ground by the driver’s side door and run over.
That's when the 43-year-old man intervened and managed to stop the vehicle just feet from the street.
“I looked at the shifter, it was in reverse. I put it in park and that’s when I looked in the backseat and saw three kids,” Cincotta told the Newsday. “They said they were OK, and there were high-fives all around.”
The kids' mother didn't suffer serious injuries and walked away with only minor cuts and bruises after the incident.
Apparently, the woman had left the car running when she entered the store and one of the three young girls must have shifted the vehicle into reverse. Cincotta, who is a parent himself, says he sympathized with the woman and doesn't consider himself a hero. He says he just did the right thing.
“The most important thing is that the kids are safe. I was just at the right place at the right time, thank God,” he said.
But what makes his heroic deed even more impressive is the fact that he suffers from a medical condition that means he can't run.
“I have neuropathy up through my hips from diabetes, so I trip a lot, just walking,” the man says. “So for me to run, any of my friends who saw the video were like, ‘I never seen you run like that.’ Me, neither.”
